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Linux Kernel dell-laptop CVE-2026-72144

| EUVDEUVD-2026-58902 HIGH
2026-08-15 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 GHSA-v9hf-qh3h-mwjj
Information Disclosure Linux Red Hat Dell Suse
7.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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Severity by source

Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67) PRIMARY
7.8 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
7.0 HIGH

AV:L confirmed; AC elevated to H because exploiting the error path requires non-default triggering conditions beyond normal operation; PR:L reflects required local user access.

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
2.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Red Hat
5.5 MEDIUM
qualitative

Primary rating from Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67).

CVSS VectorVendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Aug 17, 2026 - 07:14 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Aug 17, 2026 - 06:22 NVD
7.8 (HIGH)
Patch available
Aug 15, 2026 - 07:20 EUVD
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 06:21 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 06:21 cve.org
HIGH 7.8

DescriptionCVE.org

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

platform/x86: dell-laptop: fix missing cleanups in init error path

dell_init() initializes several resources after dell_setup_rfkill(), including the optional touchpad LED, keyboard backlight LED, battery hook, debugfs directory and dell-laptop notifier.

If a later LED or backlight registration fails, the error path only tears down the battery hook and rfkill resources. This leaves the notifier, debugfs directory, keyboard backlight LED and optional touchpad LED registered after dell_init() returns an error.

Add the missing cleanup calls before tearing down rfkill.

AnalysisAI

Incomplete error-path cleanup in the Linux kernel's dell-laptop platform driver exposes systems running Dell hardware to resource leak conditions that can be leveraged for privilege escalation by local low-privileged users. The dell_init() function fails to release the notifier, debugfs directory, keyboard backlight LED, and optional touchpad LED when a later initialization step fails, leaving dangling kernel object registrations. No active exploitation is confirmed (not in CISA KEV), and the EPSS score is very low at 0.20% (10th percentile), but the CVSS 3.1 score of 7.8 High with local-access C:H/I:H/A:H reflects the theoretical privilege escalation ceiling if the dangling resources are abused post-init.

Technical ContextAI

The affected code resides in drivers/platform/x86/dell-laptop.c within the Linux kernel, a module that manages Dell-specific laptop hardware features including rfkill, touchpad LED, keyboard backlight, battery hook integration, and a debugfs interface. The vulnerability class is CWE-459 (Incomplete Cleanup) or equivalently CWE-772 (Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime): when dell_init() encounters a failure after dell_setup_rfkill() but before all subsequent resources are registered, the existing goto-based error path correctly tears down battery hook and rfkill, but omits cleanup of the kernel notifier chain entry, debugfs directory, keyboard backlight LED sysfs node, and touchpad LED sysfs node. Leaving these registered while the module is in a partial or failed state can produce use-after-free conditions or double-registration faults on subsequent load attempts. Affected kernel lines span from the introduction of the bug at commit 037accfa14b2 in Linux 2.6.37 through all stable trees prior to the fix commits: 6e9cab2247e5 (6.18.x branch), 6bd76d5421a7 (6.12.x branch), b351e082711d (7.1.x branch), e4908b3bed75 (another stable branch), and 1e41ca4a7fba (6.6.x branch).

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patches are confirmed available across all active stable kernel branches. The primary remediation is to upgrade the running kernel to one of the fixed versions: 6.6.148, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, or 7.2-rc1 (or later), depending on the distribution's kernel track. Distribution maintainers for Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, SUSE, and others are expected to backport these commits; check the distribution's security advisory channel for package-level updates. If an immediate kernel upgrade is not feasible, a compensating control is to prevent non-essential users from loading or reloading kernel modules (e.g., restrict CAP_SYS_MODULE and use kernel module signing enforcement via CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_FORCE), which reduces the attack surface by preventing deliberate triggering of the init failure path. Disabling the dell-laptop module entirely (blacklist dell-laptop in /etc/modprobe.d/) removes the vulnerable code path at the cost of losing Dell-specific hardware features such as keyboard backlight, touchpad LED, rfkill integration, and battery management hooks. Fix commits are available at the kernel.org stable git references listed in the affected products section.

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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Moderate
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.0 Not-Affected

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CVE-2026-72144 vulnerability details – vuln.today
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