diff --git a/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c b/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
index 1aa51790856192f609b47160f2886b7f3bead352..e578c3999970e2237f283c546cc54a36cd9244ba 100644
--- a/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
+++ b/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
@@ -1743,7 +1743,7 @@ static int parse_cgroup_root_flags(char *data, unsigned int *root_flags)
 
 	*root_flags = 0;
 
-	if (!data)
+	if (!data || *data == '\0')
 		return 0;
 
 	while ((token = strsep(&data, ",")) != NULL) {