CVE-2026-98231

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

xfrm: serialize state GC with device state flush

The deferred-device pass in xfrm_dev_state_flush() finds states under
xfrm_state_dev_gc_lock, but drops the lock before calling
xfrm_dev_state_free() because the driver callback may sleep.  The device
GC list does not hold an xfrm_state reference, so the state GC worker can
destroy the same state concurrently.

The race can proceed as follows:

  CPU 0                               CPU 1
  find x on the device GC list
  drop xfrm_state_dev_gc_lock
  read x->xso.dev
                                      xfrm_state_gc_destroy(x)
                                      xfrm_dev_state_free(x)
                                      xfrm_state_free(x)
  continue xfrm_dev_state_free(x)

Both paths can invoke the driver callback and drop the device reference.
CPU 0 can also access the xfrm_state after CPU 1 has freed it.

KASAN reported:

  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in xfrm_dev_state_free+0x24c/0x2a0
  Read of size 8 at addr ffff88810bbaa960 by task poc/102

  Call Trace:
   xfrm_dev_state_free+0x24c/0x2a0
   xfrm_dev_state_flush+0x353/0x400
   xfrm_dev_event+0x26d/0x3a0
   notifier_call_chain+0xc0/0x280
   __dev_notify_flags+0x169/0x250
   netif_change_flags+0xe7/0x160
   dev_change_flags+0x96/0x220
   devinet_ioctl+0x7f4/0x1880

  Allocated by task 87:
   xfrm_state_alloc+0x1e/0x5c0
   xfrm_add_sa+0xe7f/0x5820
   xfrm_user_rcv_msg+0x4f3/0x940

  Freed by task 57:
   kmem_cache_free+0xcb/0x3d0
   xfrm_state_gc_task+0x4a8/0x650
   process_one_work+0x63a/0x1070

Serialize xfrm_state destruction against the deferred-device pass with a
mutex.  Keep xfrm_state_dev_gc_lock limited to list operations and retain
the existing callback and device-reference release ordering.