Use After Free in Linux

CVE-2025-39721

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: qat - flush misc workqueue during device shutdown Repeated loading and unloading of a device specific QAT driver, for example qat_4xxx, in a tight loop can lead to a crash due to a use-after-free scenario. This occurs when a power management (PM) interrupt triggers just before the device-specific driver (e.g., qat_4xxx.ko) is unloaded, while the core driver (intel_qat.ko) remains loaded. Since the driver uses a shared workqueue (`qat_misc_wq`) across all devices and owned by intel_qat.ko, a deferred routine from the device-specific driver may still be pending in the queue. If this routine executes after the driver is unloaded, it can dereference freed memory, resulting in a page fault and kernel crash like the following: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffa000002e50a01c #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode RIP: 0010:pm_bh_handler+0x1d2/0x250 [intel_qat] Call Trace: pm_bh_handler+0x1d2/0x250 [intel_qat] process_one_work+0x171/0x340 worker_thread+0x277/0x3a0 kthread+0xf0/0x120 ret_from_fork+0x2d/0x50 To prevent this, flush the misc workqueue during device shutdown to ensure that all pending work items are completed before the driver is unloaded. Note: This approach may slightly increase shutdown latency if the workqueue contains jobs from other devices, but it ensures correctness and stability.

Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free

EPSS: 0.001 (4.1th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.