CVE-2026-46011
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk3th percentile - higher than 3% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel affecting the mtk_jpeg_release() function. The issue arises from freeing the context (ctx) without first canceling any pending or running work, leading to race conditions and potential access to freed memory.
Risk Assessment
Organizations may be exposed to attacks exploiting this vulnerability, which could lead to unauthorized memory access and potential system crashes.
Recommendation
It is recommended to update the Linux kernel to a version that includes a fix for this vulnerability and to ensure that the cancel_work_sync() function is called before acquiring the mutex.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: media: mtk-jpeg: fix use-after-free in release path due to uncancelled work The mtk_jpeg_release() function frees the context structure (ctx) without first cancelling any pending or running work in ctx->jpeg_work. This creates a race window where the workqueue callback may still be accessing the context memory after it has been freed. Race condition: CPU 0 (release) CPU 1 (workqueue) ---------------- ------------------ close() mtk_jpeg_release() mtk_jpegenc_worker() ctx = work->data // accessing ctx kfree(ctx) // freed! access ctx // UAF! The work is queued via queue_work() during JPEG encode/decode operations (via mtk_jpeg_device_run). If the device is closed while work is pending or running, the work handler will access freed memory. Fix this by calling cancel_work_sync() BEFORE acquiring the mutex. This ordering is critical: if cancel_work_sync() is called after mutex_lock(), and the work handler also tries to acquire the same mutex, it would cause a deadlock. Note: The open error path does NOT need cancel_work_sync() because INIT_WORK() only initializes the work structure - it does not schedule it. Work is only scheduled later during ioctl operations.