In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: binder: fix UAF in binder_free_transaction() In binder_free_transaction(), the t->to_proc is read under the t->lock. However, once the t->lock is dropped, the to_proc can die in parallel. This leads to a use-after-free error when we attempt to acquire its inner lock right afterwards: ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in _raw_spin_lock+0xe4/0x1a0 Write of size 4 at addr ffff00001125da70 by task B/672 CPU: 20 UID: 0 PID: 672 Comm: B Not tainted 7.1.0-rc6-00284-g8e65320d91cd #4 PREEMPT Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Call trace: _raw_spin_lock+0xe4/0x1a0 binder_free_transaction+0x8c/0x320 binder_send_failed_reply+0x21c/0x2f8 binder_thread_release+0x488/0x7e0 binder_ioctl+0x12c0/0x29a0 [...] Allocated by task 675: __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x174/0x444 binder_open+0x118/0xb70 do_dentry_open+0x374/0x1040 vfs_open+0x58/0x3bc [...] Freed by task 212: __kasan_slab_free+0x58/0x80 kfree+0x1a0/0x4a4 binder_proc_dec_tmpref+0x32c/0x5e0 binder_deferred_func+0xc48/0x104c process_one_work+0x53c/0xbc0 [...] ================================================================== To prevent this, pin the target thread (t->to_thread) to guarantee the target process remains alive. Undelivered transactions without a target thread are already safe, as the target process can only be the current context in those paths.