CVE-2026-23009: xhci: sideband: don't dereference freed ring when removing sideband endpoint

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-23009 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4.9% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 25-01-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xhci: sideband: don't dereference freed ring when removing sideband endpoint xhci_sideband_remove_endpoint() incorrecly assumes that the endpoint is running and has a valid transfer ring. Lianqin reported a crash during suspend/wake-up stress testing, and found the cause to be dereferencing a non-existing transfer ring 'ep->ring' during xhci_sideband_remove_endpoint(). The endpoint and its ring may be in unknown state if this function is called after xHCI was reinitialized in resume (lost power), or if device is being re-enumerated, disconnected or endpoint already dropped. Fix this by both removing unnecessary ring access, and by checking ep->ring exists before dereferencing it. Also make sure endpoint is running before attempting to stop it. Remove the xhci_initialize_ring_info() call during sideband endpoint removal as is it only initializes ring structure enqueue, dequeue and cycle state values to their starting values without changing actual hardware enqueue, dequeue and cycle state. Leaving them out of sync is worse than leaving it as it is. The endpoint will get freed in after this in most usecases. If the (audio) class driver want's to reuse the endpoint after offload then it is up to the class driver to ensure endpoint is properly set up.

No weakness data has been published for this record.