CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedThe vulnerability affects the Linux kernel's handling of hardware monitoring (hwmon) devices, specifically during the unregistration process, which can lead to a circular locking dependency and potential deadlock. This issue arises when the OCC mutex is held while waiting for sysfs callbacks, creating a race condition that can disrupt system stability. Organizations using Linux kernel versions with this vulnerability should prioritize patching to prevent possible system hangs and ensure reliable operation of hardware monitoring functionalities.
Public Exploit Signal
A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.
Note: these links are listed for security research and verification purposes only.
Original NVD Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hwmon: (occ) unregister sysfs devices outside occ lock occ_active(false) and occ_shutdown() unregister sysfs-backed devices while occ->lock is held. hwmon_device_unregister() and sysfs_remove_group() can wait for active sysfs callbacks to drain, and those callbacks can enter the OCC update path and try to take occ->lock again. That gives the unregister paths the lock ordering occ->lock -> sysfs callback drain, while a callback has the opposite edge sysfs callback -> occ->lock. This issue was found by our static analysis tool and then manually reviewed against the current tree. The grounded PoC kept the real unregister and callback carrier: occ_shutdown() hwmon_device_unregister() occ_show_temp_1() occ_update_response() Lockdep reported the circular dependency with occ_shutdown() already holding the OCC mutex and hwmon_device_unregister() waiting on the sysfs side: WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected ... (sysfs_lock) ... at: hwmon_device_unregister+0x12/0x30 [vuln_msv] ... (&test_occ.lock) ... at: occ_shutdown.constprop.0+0xe/0x40 [vuln_msv] occ_update_response.isra.0+0xb/0x20 [vuln_msv] occ_show_temp_1.constprop.0.isra.0+0x23/0x40 [vuln_msv] *** DEADLOCK *** Serialize hwmon registration and removal with a separate hwmon_lock. Under that lock, detach occ->hwmon and update occ->active while occ->lock is held so concurrent OCC state changes still see a stable state, then drop occ->lock before calling hwmon_device_unregister(). Remove the driver sysfs group before taking occ->lock in occ_shutdown(), so draining the driver attributes cannot wait while the OCC mutex is held. Also make OCC update callbacks return -ENODEV after deactivation, so callbacks that already passed sysfs active protection do not poll the hardware after teardown has detached the hwmon device.