CVE-2022-48961: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: mdio: fix unbalanced fwnode reference count in mdio_device_release() There is warning report about of_node refcount leak while probing mdio device: OF: ERROR: memory leak, expected refcount 1 instead of 2, of_node_get()/of_node_put() unbalanced - destroy cset entry: attach overlay node /spi/soc@0/mdio@710700c0/ethernet@4 In of_mdiobus_register_device(), we increase fwnode refcount by fwnode_handle_get() before associating the of_node with mdio device, but it has never been decreased in normal path. Since that, in mdio_device_release(), it needs to call fwnode_handle_put() in addition instead of calling kfree() directly. After above, just calling mdio_device_free() in the error handle path of of_mdiobus_register_device() is enough to keep the refcount balanced.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 4.5, before 5.15.83 (fixed in 5.15.83); from 5.16, before 6.0.13 (fixed in 6.0.13); version 6.1 only

Published 2024-10-21. Last modified 2026-06-17.