CVE-2026-31584

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...