Kernel fault via stale deferred-free pointer tag
Published Jan 14, 2026 · Updated Jan 14, 2026
Use-after-free in Linux Kernel 6.18 allows local users to trigger a KASAN tag fault during SLUB deferred-free processing. In mm/slub.c, kfree_nolock() poisons a freed object's tag before defer_free() passes the stale-tagged pointer to llist_add(), whose bookkeeping write then mismatches the memory tag. Exposure requires CONFIG_SLUB_TINY and tag-based KASAN on ARM64 with MTE; the fault produces a KASAN report and can panic the kernel when panic-on-warning behavior is enabled.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Linux Kernel 6.18 allows local users to trigger a KASAN tag fault during SLUB deferred-free processing. In mm/slub.c, kfree_nolock() poisons a freed object's tag before defer_free() passes the stale-tagged pointer to llist_add(), whose bookkeeping write then mismatches the memory tag. Exposure requires CONFIG_SLUB_TINY and tag-based KASAN on ARM64 with MTE; the fault produces a KASAN report and can panic the kernel when panic-on-warning behavior is enabled.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-71110
- Published
- Jan 14, 2026
- Updated
- Jan 14, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux Kernel
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 14, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jan 14, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=6.18
- Affected versionversion=af92793e52c3a99b828ed4bdd277fd3e11c18d08 <53ca00a19d345197a37a1bf552e8d1e7b091666c
- Affected versionversion=af92793e52c3a99b828ed4bdd277fd3e11c18d08 <65d4e5af2a2e82f4fc50d8259aee208fbc6b2c1d
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Technologies
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