CVE-2026-98428

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ALSA USB 6fire audio driver. The driver improperly embeds USB Request Blocks (URBs)—structures that manage USB communications—directly inside driver objects rather than allocating them dynamically. Because URBs rely on reference counting and can be released asynchronously, this design can cause memory to be accessed after it has been freed. A local attacker could exploit this flaw to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) via a system crash or potentially execute arbitrary code.

The ALSA USB 6fire driver embeds reference counted URBs inside PCM, MIDI, and communication runtime objects. An URB can remain referenced or be released asynchronously after the containing runtime object has been destroyed, resulting in a kernel use after free and possible memory corruption. A local process may help trigger the vulnerable lifetime transition by using the affected audio or USB device while disconnect, cleanup, or an error path races with URB completion. For the CVSS the PR:L value is used because practical software triggering requires a local user or process with access to the affected ALSA or USB device. The issue is not network reachable and requires the USB 6fire driver and compatible hardware to be present. Impact is at least a local denial of service via kernel crash and in the worst case may include confidentiality and integrity impact or privilege escalation because the underlying primitive is a kernel use after free. The asynchronous lifetime window makes exploitation complex and configuration 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.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options don't meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.