High · published August 15, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ALSA: seq: oss: Fix UAF at handling events with embedded SysEx data
The OSS sequencer processes the input MIDI bytes into a sequencer
event to be dispatched later (in snd_seq_oss_midi_putc() called from
snd_seq_oss_process_event()). When it's a SysEx data, the event
record contains data.ext.ptr pointer to the original SysEx bytes, and
the referred data is copied into the pool afterwards at dispatching.
The problem is that, if the sequencer port gets closed concurrently
before the dispatch, the OSS sequencer core also releases the
resources (in snd_seq_oss_midi_check_exit_port()), while the pending
event may hold a stale pointer, eventually leading to a UAF at a later
dispatch.
Fortunately, there is already a refcounting mechanism (snd_use_lock_t)
for the OSS MIDI device access, and for addressing the issue above, we
just need to extend the refcount until the event gets dispatched.
This patch extends snd_seq_oss_process_event() to give back the
refcount object, which is in turn released after calling the sequencer
dispatcher with the given event in the caller side.
According to the original report, KASAN report as below:
KASAN slab-use-after-free in snd_seq_event_dup+0x40c/0x470
RIP: 0033:0x7f2cb66a6340
Read of size 6
Call trace:
dump_stack_lvl+0x73/0xb0 (?:?)
print_report+0xd1/0x650 (?:?)
srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 (?:?)
__virt_addr_valid+0x1a7/0x340 (?:?)
kasan_complete_mode_report_info+0x64/0x200 (?:?)
kasan_report+0xf7/0x130 (?:?)
snd_seq_event_dup+0x40c/0x470 (?:?)
kasan_check_range+0x10c/0x1c0 (?:?)
__asan_memcpy+0x27/0x70 (?:?)
snd_seq_event_dup+0x9/0x470 (?:?)
snd_seq_client_enqueue_event+0x139/0x240 (?:?)
_raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x4b/0x60 (?:?)
snd_seq_kernel_client_enqueue+0x102/0x120 (?:?)
snd_seq_oss_write+0x416/0x4e0 (?:?)
apparmor_file_permission+0x20/0x30 (?:?)
odev_write+0x3b/0x60 (?:?)
vfs_write+0x1ce/0x850 (?:?)
lock_release+0xc8/0x2a0 (?:?)
__kasan_check_write+0x18/0x20 (?:?)
__mutex_unlock_slowpath+0x129/0x510 (?:?)
ksys_write+0xe1/0x180 (?:?)
mutex_unlock+0x16/0x20 (?:?)
odev_ioctl+0x65/0xc0 (?:?)
__x64_sys_write+0x46/0x60 (?:?)
x64_sys_call+0x7d/0x20d0 (?:?)
do_syscall_64+0xc1/0x360 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:87)
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f (?:?)