In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ALSA: sh: aica: reorder cleanup operations to avoid UAF bugs
The dreamcastcard->timer could schedule the spu_dma_work and the spu_dma_work could also arm the dreamcastcard->timer.
When the snd_pcm_substream is closing, the aica_channel will be deallocated. But it could still be dereferenced in the worker thread. The reason is that del_timer() will return directly regardless of whether the timer handler is running or not and the worker could be rescheduled in the timer handler. As a result, the UAF bug will happen. The racy situation is shown below:
(Thread 1) | (Thread 2) snd_aicapcm_pcm_close() | ... | run_spu_dma() //worker | mod_timer() flush_work() | del_timer() | aica_period_elapsed() //timer kfree(dreamcastcard->channel) | schedule_work() | run_spu_dma() //worker ... | dreamcastcard->channel-> //USE
In order to mitigate this bug and other possible corner cases, call mod_timer() conditionally in run_spu_dma(), then implement PCM sync_stop op to cancel both the timer and worker. The sync_stop op will be called from PCM core appropriately when needed.