In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
media: mtk-jpeg: fix use-after-free in release path due to uncancelled work
The mtk_jpeg_release() function frees the context structure (ctx) without first cancelling any pending or running work in ctx->jpeg_work. This creates a race window where the workqueue callback may still be accessing the context memory after it has been freed.
Race condition:
CPU 0 (release) CPU 1 (workqueue) ---------------- ------------------ close() mtk_jpeg_release() mtk_jpegenc_worker() ctx = work->data // accessing ctx
kfree(ctx) // freed! access ctx // UAF!
The work is queued via queue_work() during JPEG encode/decode operations (via mtk_jpeg_device_run). If the device is closed while work is pending or running, the work handler will access freed memory.
Fix this by calling cancel_work_sync() BEFORE acquiring the mutex. This ordering is critical: if cancel_work_sync() is called after mutex_lock(), and the work handler also tries to acquire the same mutex, it would cause a deadlock.
Note: The open error path does NOT need cancel_work_sync() because INIT_WORK() only initializes the work structure - it does not schedule it. Work is only scheduled later during ioctl operations.