CVE-2025-40338

A use-after-free flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Intel Audio Voice Speech (AVS) driver in the ASoC subsystem. When multiple audio components share the same name pointer directly, tearing down one component frees the memory while other components still reference it. Subsequent access to the freed name pointer leads to use-after-free, potentially causing system crashes, memory corruption, or privilege escalation.

This vulnerability affects systems with Intel audio hardware using the AVS driver. Exploitation requires local access and typically occurs during audio device initialization or teardown operations. The race condition makes exploitation timing-dependent.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

To mitigate this issue, prevent the snd_soc_avs module from being loaded if Intel AVS audio functionality is not required. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions on how to blacklist a kernel module.