In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: 9p: add missing locking around taking dentry fid list Fix a use-after-free on dentry's d_fsdata fid list when a thread looks up a fid through dentry while another thread unlinks it: UAF thread: refcount_t: addition on 0; use-after-free. p9_fid_get linux/./include/net/9p/client.h:262 v9fs_fid_find+0x236/0x280 linux/fs/9p/fid.c:129 v9fs_fid_lookup_with_uid linux/fs/9p/fid.c:181 v9fs_fid_lookup+0xbf/0xc20 linux/fs/9p/fid.c:314 v9fs_vfs_getattr_dotl+0xf9/0x360 linux/fs/9p/vfs_inode_dotl.c:400 vfs_statx+0xdd/0x4d0 linux/fs/stat.c:248 Freed by: p9_fid_destroy (inlined) p9_client_clunk+0xb0/0xe0 linux/net/9p/client.c:1456 p9_fid_put linux/./include/net/9p/client.h:278 v9fs_dentry_release+0xb5/0x140 linux/fs/9p/vfs_dentry.c:55 v9fs_remove+0x38f/0x620 linux/fs/9p/vfs_inode.c:518 vfs_unlink+0x29a/0x810 linux/fs/namei.c:4335 The problem is that d_fsdata was not accessed under d_lock, because d_release() normally is only called once the dentry is otherwise no longer accessible but since we also call it explicitly in v9fs_remove that lock is required: move the hlist out of the dentry under lock then unref its fids once they are no longer accessible.
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 Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.