Linux CVE-2026-31576

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

media: hackrf: fix to not free memory after the device is registered in hackrf_probe()

In hackrf driver, the following race condition occurs:

		CPU0						CPU1
hackrf_probe()
  kzalloc(); // alloc hackrf_dev
  ....
  v4l2_device_register();
  ....
						fd = sys_open("/path/to/dev"); // open hackrf fd
						....
  v4l2_device_unregister();
  ....
  kfree(); // free hackrf_dev
  ....
						sys_ioctl(fd, ...);
						  v4l2_ioctl();
						    video_is_registered() // UAF!!
						....
						sys_close(fd);
						  v4l2_release() // UAF!!
						    hackrf_video_release()
						      kfree(); // DFB!!

When a V4L2 or video device is unregistered, the device node is removed so new open() calls are blocked.

However, file descriptors that are already open-and any in-flight I/O-do not terminate immediately; they remain valid until the last reference is dropped and the driver's release() is invoked.

Therefore, freeing device memory on the error path after hackrf_probe() has registered dev it will lead to a race to use-after-free vuln, since those already-open handles haven't been released yet.

And since release() free memory too, race to use-after-free and double-free vuln occur.

To prevent this, if device is registered from probe(), it should be modified to free memory only through release() rather than calling kfree() directly.