CVE-2026-31584

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

media: mediatek: vcodec: fix use-after-free in encoder release path

The fops_vcodec_release() function frees the context structure (ctx) without first cancelling any pending or running work in ctx->encode_work. This creates a race window where the workqueue handler (mtk_venc_worker) may still be accessing the context memory after it has been freed.

Race condition:

CPU 0 (release path)               CPU 1 (workqueue)
---------------------               ------------------
fops_vcodec_release()
  v4l2_m2m_ctx_release()
    v4l2_m2m_cancel_job()
    // waits for m2m job "done"
                                    mtk_venc_worker()
                                      v4l2_m2m_job_finish()
                                      // m2m job "done"
                                      // BUT worker still running!
                                      // post-job_finish access:
                                    other ctx dereferences
                                      // UAF if ctx already freed
    // returns (job "done")
  kfree(ctx)  // ctx freed

Root cause: The v4l2_m2m_ctx_release() only waits for the m2m job lifecycle (via TRANS_RUNNING flag), not the workqueue lifecycle. After v4l2_m2m_job_finish() is called, the m2m framework considers the job complete and v4l2_m2m_ctx_release() returns, but the worker function continues executing and may still access ctx.

The work is queued during encode operations via: queue_work(ctx->dev->encode_workqueue, &ctx->encode_work) The worker function accesses ctx->m2m_ctx, ctx->dev, and other ctx fields even after calling v4l2_m2m_job_finish().

This vulnerability was confirmed with KASAN by running an instrumented test module that widens the post-job_finish race window. KASAN detected:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in mtk_venc_worker+0x159/0x180 Read of size 4 at addr ffff88800326e000 by task kworker/u8:0/12

Workqueue: mtk_vcodec_enc_wq mtk_venc_worker

Allocated by task 47: __kasan_kmalloc+0x7f/0x90 fops_vcodec_open+0x85/0x1a0

Freed by task 47: __kasan_slab_free+0x43/0x70 kfree+0xee/0x3a0 fops_vcodec_release+0xb7/0x190

Fix this by calling cancel_work_sync(&ctx->encode_work) before kfree(ctx). This ensures the workqueue handler is both cancelled (if pending) and synchronized (waits for any running handler to complete) before the context is freed.

Placement rationale: The fix is placed after v4l2_ctrl_handler_free() and before list_del_init(&ctx->list). At this point, all m2m operations are done (v4l2_m2m_ctx_release() has returned), and we need to ensure the workqueue is synchronized before removing ctx from the list and freeing it.

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 device_run() operations.

Affected Software

Weaknesses

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a9bdaf9dc42ccca50e53f82165292f74a365c11
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a8a55913552aed45108525d1851c65e1db0cc25b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f99353cd0e9f58bf17889049137b8d65fb44ebf1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/93d9a58961a9e09306857e999b3ee76aa4be67f0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f1692337c6fa26e04f89b22a4d84bf5b7ada50d1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/76e35091ffc722ba39b303e48bc5d08abb59dd56

• ←Previous
• Next→