CVE-2025-68758

Linux Kernel - Null Pointer Dereference in LED Backlight Driver via Device Removal

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: backlight: led-bl: Add devlink to supplier LEDs LED Backlight is a consumer of one or multiple LED class devices, but devlink is currently unable to create correct supplier-producer links when the supplier is a class device. It creates instead a link where the supplier is the parent of the expected device. One consequence is that removal order is not correctly enforced. Issues happen for example with the following sections in a device tree overlay: // An LED driver chip pca9632@62 { compatible = "nxp,pca9632"; reg = <0x62>; // ... addon_led_pwm: led-pwm@3 { reg = <3>; label = "addon:led:pwm"; }; }; backlight-addon { compatible = "led-backlight"; leds = <&addon_led_pwm>; brightness-levels = <255>; default-brightness-level = <255>; }; In this example, the devlink should be created between the backlight-addon (consumer) and the pca9632@62 (supplier). Instead it is created between the backlight-addon (consumer) and the parent of the pca9632@62, which is typically the I2C bus adapter. On removal of the above overlay, the LED driver can be removed before the backlight device, resulting in: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000010 ... Call trace: led_put+0xe0/0x140 devm_led_release+0x6c/0x98 Another way to reproduce the bug without any device tree overlays is unbinding the LED class device (pca9632@62) before unbinding the consumer (backlight-addon): echo 11-0062 >/sys/bus/i2c/drivers/leds-pca963x/unbind echo ...backlight-dock >/sys/bus/platform/drivers/led-backlight/unbind Fix by adding a devlink between the consuming led-backlight device and the supplying LED device, as other drivers and subsystems do as well.

Scores

EPSS 0.0007
EPSS Percentile 21.0%

Details

Status published
Products (25)
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.198linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.160linux
linux/Kernel 5.6.0 - 5.10.248linux
linux/Kernel 6.13.0 - 6.17.13linux
linux/Kernel 6.18.0 - 6.18.2linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.120linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.63linux
Linux/Linux < 5.6
Linux/Linux 5.10.248 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.15.198 - 5.15.*
... and 15 more
Published Jan 05, 2026
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026