Linux Kernel up to 7.2.4 VPE vip_quiesce_stream use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.4 and classified as very critical. This issue affects the function vip_quiesce_stream of the component VPE. The manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2026-89875. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.4. This issue affects the function vip_quiesce_stream of the component VPE. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a use after free vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-416. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: media: ti: vpe: quiesce overflow recovery before freeing streams The VIP overflow recovery worker is armed from the hardirq handler when a FIFO overflow is detected, and the list-complete path looks the stream up through the VPDMA list private pointer. Both keep touching stream, port and device state; the recovery worker also resets the parser and VPDMA, repopulates the descriptor list, and re-enables the per-list IRQs. vip_stop_streaming() masks and clears the per-list IRQs, but it neither synchronizes the hardirq handler nor disables recovery_work. An overflow IRQ that has already queued recovery_work, or a list-complete IRQ in flight when the stream is torn down, can therefore still dereference the stream after its resources are released: the descriptor list is freed by vip_release_stream() on file release, and the stream itself by free_stream() on unbind/remove. Drain the recovery worker and the IRQ handler at both teardown points through a shared vip_quiesce_stream() helper, before any stream-owned resource is released. disable_work_sync() cancels pending recovery_work, drains a running instance, and raises its disable depth, so a subsequent schedule_work() issued by a racing IRQ handler is rejected at the workqueue scheduler: recovery_work cannot be requeued after disable_work_sync() takes effect. The worker may still re-enable the per-list IRQs before disable_work_sync() returns; disable_irqs() then masks those sources and synchronize_irq() waits for any in-flight handler that still dereferences stream state. In vip_stop_streaming() the helper runs before the parser is stopped, since a worker drained by disable_work_sync() may re-enable the parser before exiting and would otherwise undo the stop. recovery_work is created disabled and enabled in vip_start_streaming() before IRQs, pairing the enable with the teardown disable across the streaming lifecycle. This issue was found by an in-house static analysis tool and confirmed by manual code review.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-89875 since 09/11/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/16/2026).

Upgrading to version 7.2.5 or 7.3-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch fd5b4a14c87b21e1c9eaee603b01bb7fa7db45c8/aeaacc3001449d44b4ab7da56331121d1f3b137b is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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