Use After Free in Linux
CVE-2026-64396
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: fix UAF of struct file_lock in SMB2_LOCK deferred-lock cancellation When a blocking byte-range lock request is deferred in the FILE_LOCK_DEFERRED path, ksmbd registers the asynchronous work into the connection's async_requests list via setup_async_work(). The cancel callback smb2_remove_blocked_lock() holds a reference to the flock. If the lock waiter is subsequently woken up but the work state is no longer KSMBD_WORK_ACTIVE (e.g., due to a concurrent cancellation), the cleanup path calls locks_free_lock(flock) without dequeuing the work from the async_requests list. Concurrently, smb2_cancel() walks the list under conn->request_lock and invokes the cancel callback, which then dereferences the already freed 'flock'. This leads to a slab-use-after-free inside __wake_up_common. Fix this by restructuring the cleanup logic after the worker returns from ksmbd_vfs_posix_lock_wait(). Move list_del(&smb_lock->llist) and release_async_work(work) to the top of the cleanup block. This guarantees that the async work is completely dequeued and serialized under conn->request_lock before locks_free_lock(flock) is called, rendering the flock unreachable for any concurrent smb2_cancel().
Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free
EPSS: 0.004 (36.5th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
Affected products
- Linux — versions 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2, 7.2-rc1, 6.6.145
- Linux Linux_kernel
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-64396?
- CVE-2026-64396 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Use After Free. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2026-07-25.
- How severe is CVE-2026-64396?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.