[CVE-2026-64480][LOW] ALSA: ice1712: check snd_ctl_new1() return value

[CVE-2026-64480][LOW] ALSA: ice1712: check snd_ctl_new1() return value

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-64480
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: YES
Patch: ALSA: ice1712: check snd_ctl_new1() return value
Commit: 57d59be545b309d4bb54ac472b15d1e67f254d95
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=57d59be545b309d4bb54ac472b15d1e67f254d95
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64480
Analysis date: Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:26:31 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: 0
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
ALSA ice1712 based drivers could dereference a NULL kcontrol pointer if snd_ctl_new1() failed during control creation, causing a local device-initialization DoS but showing no supported privilege escalation or memory corruption primitive.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-64480 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64480

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.

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

CVE-2026-64480	LOW	CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN NONE	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';CWE-252;**CWE-476;CWE-703;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.7';DESCR 'ALSA ice1712 based drivers can dereference a NULL kcontrol pointer because snd_ctl_new1() may fail under memory pressure and several call sites used the returned pointer without checking it. The reachable failure mode is a NULL pointer dereference during creation of ALSA control elements, most likely during driver or device initialization. For the CVSS the PR:L is used for the paranoid score because a local unprivileged process may be able to contribute by creating memory pressure while the affected initialization path runs. Reliable triggering still depends on the sound hardware and on driver initialization or reload timing. The issue is not network reachable. Impact is denial of service through an oops or possible kernel crash, with no supported confidentiality or integrity impact.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 1)	YES	NULLPTR NOMEMCHK SIMPLEFIX HARDWARE LINUS KPANIC 	NO	NO	checked

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

ActionableScore=1
ActionableScoreLower=0

## 1. ActionableScore

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

## 2. Signal breakdown

Triggered signals:

* Reliable kernel crash / strong DoS: +1
  `snd_ctl_new1()` can return NULL on allocation failure, and the old code dereferenced `kctl` immediately, so the failure mode is a NULL pointer dereference and possible kernel oops.

Subtracting signals:

* Requires admin/root/CAP_* in typical deployments: -2
  The affected paths are ALSA PCI driver control creation paths, normally reached during device or driver initialization, probe, or reload, which is usually controlled by root or system device management.
* Hard or unreliable trigger / special condition: -1
  Triggering requires allocation failure at specific `snd_ctl_new1()` call sites during initialization.
* Rare or device-specific subsystem/configuration: -1
  This is limited to specific ALSA ice1712/ice1724/aureon PCI sound hardware and not a broad default kernel path.

Not triggered:

* No generic memory corruption signal. This is a NULL dereference, not UAF, double-free, OOB write, type confusion, refcount misuse, or arbitrary write.
* No privilege escalation signal. No reclaim, overwrite, callback control, object confusion, or attacker-controlled reuse is shown.
* No confidentiality or integrity signal. The patch only prevents dereferencing a failed allocation.
* No high-control device API bonus. ALSA control creation alone does not show attacker influence over object lifetime, memory layout, callbacks, or refcounts.

Call-site confidence: high. The relevant call sites and dereferences are visible in the patch.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The most realistic trigger is during driver or device initialization when ALSA creates control elements for ice1712/ice1724/aureon hardware. A local unprivileged process may be able to contribute indirectly by creating memory pressure, but it normally cannot reliably force the affected driver initialization path without help from root, hotplug, or system service behavior. The bug is not network reachable. Namespace or container delegation does not materially change reachability unless the container can control host device initialization, which is not typical.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves like an ordinary Moderate or Low-like kernel DoS issue. The theoretical impact is a kernel oops or panic if allocation failure occurs at the right point, but the patch does not show memory corruption beyond NULL pointer dereference. Realistic exploitation is constrained by hardware specificity, allocation-failure timing, and privileged driver lifecycle control. It should not be treated as Important-class without additional evidence of a stronger primitive.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

ALSA ice1712 based drivers could dereference a NULL kcontrol pointer if snd_ctl_new1() failed during control creation, causing a local device-initialization DoS but showing no supported privilege escalation or memory corruption primitive.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

This can be auto-closed for practical triage because it is a device-specific unchecked allocation failure leading to NULL dereference only, with no network reachability, no strong memory corruption primitive, and no plausible LPE path shown by the patch.

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

Patch: ALSA: ice1712: check snd_ctl_new1() return value
Commit: 57d59be545b309d4bb54ac472b15d1e67f254d95
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=57d59be545b309d4bb54ac472b15d1e67f254d95

Commit description:

snd_ctl_new1() can return NULL when memory allocation fails. The
ice1712 driver calls snd_ctl_new1() without checking the return value
before dereferencing the pointer in multiple places (ice1712.c,
ice1724.c, aureon.c), which can lead to NULL pointer dereferences.

Add NULL checks after snd_ctl_new1() calls and return -ENOMEM if any
fails.

Assisted-by: Opencode:DeepSeek-V4-Flash
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Fixes: b9a4efd ("ALSA: ice1712,ice1724: fix the kcontrol->id initialization")
Signed-off-by: Zhao Dongdong <zhaodongdong@kylinos.cn>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/tencent_42E5E2AB1B6A5101F7EE8C2117F1F687BB07@qq.com
Signed-off-by: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

Changed files:
  sound/pci/ice1712/aureon.c
  sound/pci/ice1712/ice1712.c
  sound/pci/ice1712/ice1724.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=57d59be545b309d4bb54ac472b15d1e67f254d95

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-64480 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64480

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: AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.7

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: 0
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 1

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: YES
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).