In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: fix potential key use-after-free When ieee80211_key_link() is called by ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add() but returns 0 due to KRACK protection (identical key reinstall), ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add() will still return a pointer into the key, in a potential use-after-free. This normally doesn't happen since it's only called by iwlwifi in case of WoWLAN rekey offload which has its own KRACK protection, but still better to fix, do that by returning an error code and converting that to success on the cfg80211 boundary only, leaving the error for bad callers of ieee80211_gtk_rekey_add().
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.