The use-after-free vulnerability was found in the AuthentIC driver in OpenSC packages, occuring in the card enrolment process using pkcs15-init when a user or administrator enrols or modifies cards. An attacker must have physical access to the computer system and requires a crafted USB device or smart card to present the system with specially crafted responses to the APDUs, which are considered high complexity and low severity. This manipulation can allow for compromised card management operations during enrolment.
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 Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.