In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid use-after-free in ext4_ext_show_leaf() In ext4_find_extent(), path may be freed by error or be reallocated, so using a previously saved *ppath may have been freed and thus may trigger use-after-free, as follows: ext4_split_extent path = *ppath; ext4_split_extent_at(ppath) path = ext4_find_extent(ppath) ext4_split_extent_at(ppath) // ext4_find_extent fails to free path // but zeroout succeeds ext4_ext_show_leaf(inode, path) eh = path[depth].p_hdr // path use-after-free !!! Similar to ext4_split_extent_at(), we use *ppath directly as an input to ext4_ext_show_leaf(). Fix a spelling error by the way. Same problem in ext4_ext_handle_unwritten_extents(). Since 'path' is only used in ext4_ext_show_leaf(), remove 'path' and use *ppath directly. This issue is triggered only when EXT_DEBUG is defined and therefore does not affect functionality.
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 Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.