Bug 2376556 (CVE-2025-38235)

Summary: CVE-2025-38235 kernel: HID: appletb-kbd: fix "appletb_backlight" backlight device reference counting
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-07-06 10:01:14 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

HID: appletb-kbd: fix "appletb_backlight" backlight device reference counting

During appletb_kbd_probe, probe attempts to get the backlight device
by name. When this happens backlight_device_get_by_name looks for a
device in the backlight class which has name "appletb_backlight" and
upon finding a match it increments the reference count for the device
and returns it to the caller. However this reference is never released
leading to a reference leak.

Fix this by decrementing the backlight device reference count on removal
via put_device and on probe failure.
Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-07-07 02:56:35 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025070619-CVE-2025-38235-0098@gregkh/T