In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
spi: Fix use-after-free with devm_spi_alloc_*
We cant rely on the contents of the devres list during spi_unregister_controller(), as the list is already torn down at the time we perform devres_find() for devm_spi_release_controller. This causes devices registered with devm_spi_alloc_{master,slave}() to be mistakenly identified as legacy, non-devm managed devices and have their reference counters decremented below 0.
————[ cut here ]———— WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 660 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0x108/0x174 [] (refcount_warn_saturate) from [] (kobject_put+0x90/0x98) [] (kobject_put) from [] (put_device+0x20/0x24) r4:b6700140 [] (put_device) from [] (devm_spi_release_controller+0x3c/0x40) [] (devm_spi_release_controller) from [] (release_nodes+0x84/0xc4) r5:b6700180 r4:b6700100 [] (release_nodes) from [] (devres_release_all+0x5c/0x60) r8:b1638c54 r7:b117ad94 r6:b1638c10 r5:b117ad94 r4:b163dc10 [] (devres_release_all) from [] (__device_release_driver+0x144/0x1ec) r5:b117ad94 r4:b163dc10 [] (__device_release_driver) from [] (device_driver_detach+0x84/0xa0) r9:00000000 r8:00000000 r7:b117ad94 r6:b163dc54 r5:b1638c10 r4:b163dc10 [] (device_driver_detach) from [] (unbind_store+0xe4/0xf8)
Instead, determine the devm allocation state as a flag on the controller which is guaranteed to be stable during cleanup.