CVE-2026-72005 in Linux
Summary
by MITRE • 08/15/2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: rt2x00: avoid full teardown before work setup in probe
rt2x00lib_probe_dev() uses the full rt2x00lib_remove_dev() teardown for all probe failures. However, drv_data allocation and workqueue allocation can fail before intf_work, autowakeup_work and sleep_work have been initialized.
Do not enter the full remove path until the probe has reached the point where those work items are set up. Return directly for drv_data allocation failure, and use a small early cleanup path for workqueue allocation failure.
This issue was found by our static analysis tool and then confirmed by manual review of rt2x00lib_probe_dev() and rt2x00lib_remove_dev(). The early probe exits should not call a common teardown path that assumes the later work setup has already completed.
A QEMU PoC forced alloc_ordered_workqueue() to fail before the work initializers are reached. The resulting fail path entered rt2x00lib_remove_dev(), and DEBUG_OBJECTS reported invalid work drains with rt2x00lib_probe_dev() and rt2x00lib_remove_dev() in the stack.
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