[CVE-2026-45963][LOW] ASoC: nau8821: Cancel delayed work on component remove [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-45963
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: ASoC: nau8821: Cancel delayed work on component remove [ Upstream
Commit: 3955767ec39dcc0358470ffe6535703e2b7fd815
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=3955767ec39dcc0358470ffe6535703e2b7fd815
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45963
Analysis date: Wed, 27 May 2026 19:09:46 -0400
ActionableScore: 0
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
No one-sentence report phrase was found.

======================================================================
ABOUT THIS REPORT
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-45963 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45963

The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity
estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the
reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines
an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a
separate ActionableScore mechanism.

The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before
manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and
support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful
security impact.

Published priority for this report: LOW
Manual review required: NO

A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included
at the end of this message.

======================================================================
AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT
======================================================================

CVE-2026-45963	LOW	CHECK	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-416;CWE-362;CWE-667;CWE-703;BEST CVSS score: '4.1';DESCR 'The nau8821 ASoC codec driver can leave jack detection delayed work pending while the component is removed. If the work later runs after driver or component state has gone away, nau8821_jdet_work can access invalid objects and crash the kernel. For the CVSS the PR:H is used because reliable triggering normally requires administrator level driver unload, device unbind, or equivalent device management control. The issue is not network reachable and is not exposed through a normal unprivileged data path. Impact is denial of service through a kernel crash during driver removal or unload.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 0) 	MAYBE	LOCK DANGER HARDWARE  DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3	-	-	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
======================================================================

ActionableScore=0

1. ActionableScore
* Conservative score: 0
* Paranoid score: 0
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like**::

2. Signal breakdown
* Reliable kernel crash / DoS: +1. Pending delayed work can run after component removal and crash the kernel.
* Requires admin/root/device-management control: -2. Reliable triggering normally requires driver unload, component removal, or device unbind.
* Rare hardware/driver-specific exposure: -1. This is specific to the NAU8821 ASoC codec driver and platforms using it.
* Lifetime bug but privileged lifecycle only. The workqueue-after-remove pattern is a lifetime issue, but no unprivileged trigger or controlled memory corruption primitive is shown.
* No network, confidentiality, integrity, or LPE signal.

3. Reachability analysis
The issue is reachable when the driver or component is removed while jack-detection delayed work is pending. In normal deployments, this requires administrator-level module unload, driver unbind, or device-management action. Containers do not lower privileges unless they are granted dangerous host device-management capabilities. It is not network reachable and not exposed through regular audio playback or capture paths.

4. Severity interpretation
This behaves like a Low-like privileged driver lifecycle DoS. Although the underlying pattern is use-after-remove, the realistic impact is kernel crash during driver unload or component removal. There is no demonstrated practical memory corruption exploitation, privilege escalation, or unprivileged path.

5. One-sentence report phrase
The NAU8821 ASoC driver can leave jack-detection delayed work pending during component removal, causing a privileged driver-unload-time kernel crash.

6. Manual review recommendation
NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED. This is a privileged, hardware-specific driver removal cleanup bug with no remote or normal unprivileged trigger.

======================================================================
UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================

Patch: ASoC: nau8821: Cancel delayed work on component remove [ Upstream
Commit: 3955767ec39dcc0358470ffe6535703e2b7fd815
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=3955767ec39dcc0358470ffe6535703e2b7fd815

Changed files:
  sound/soc/codecs/nau8821.c

Diff excerpt:

Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch.

Full patch:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=3955767ec39dcc0358470ffe6535703e2b7fd815

======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-45963 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45963

The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level
estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact
level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a
practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list
is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information.

The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel
CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help
identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin.

The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional
LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is
based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms
produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness
types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore.

Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability
information often permits more than one defensible interpretation:

  Conservative CVSS vector: Not available
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.1

The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation.
The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound
interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated
real-world impact.

CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment,
because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration,
hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental
conditions can differ significantly between systems.

A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation
urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites,
subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service
reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or
privilege-escalation impact.

  Conservative ActionableScore: unknown
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 0

The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated
field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not
replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and
if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see
self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7.

For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following
additional presentation split:

  ActionableScore below 5   -> MODERATE REGULAR
  ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0

The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it
possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis
and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases,
MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update.

There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0
even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result
contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as
MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without
usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens
and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage).

KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly
serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification
workflow.

AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: LOW
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW

These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are
machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should
be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition.
For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/
(and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report
for non-existant CVE-id yet).

Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than
real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or
Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases,
please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses
info to this particular CVE.
And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants
or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I
need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar).
My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).