diff --git a/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c b/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
index 8da9bf5e422f0f..879c9f191f6625 100644
--- a/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
+++ b/kernel/cgroup/cgroup.c
@@ -1748,7 +1748,7 @@ 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) {