CVE-2025-71110 — mm/slub: reset KASAN tag in defer_free() before accessing freed memory

Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/slub: reset KASAN tag in defer_free() before accessing freed memory

When CONFIG_SLUB_TINY is enabled, kfree_nolock() calls kasan_slab_free() before defer_free(). On ARM64 with MTE (Memory Tagging Extension), kasan_slab_free() poisons the memory and changes the tag from the original (e.g., 0xf3) to a poison tag (0xfe).

When defer_free() then tries to write to the freed object to build the deferred free list via llist_add(), the pointer still has the old tag, causing a tag mismatch and triggering a KASAN use-after-free report:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in defer_free+0x3c/0xbc mm/slub.c:6537 Write at addr f3f000000854f020 by task kworker/u8:6/983 Pointer tag: [f3], memory tag: [fe]

Fix this by calling kasan_reset_tag() before accessing the freed memory. This is safe because defer_free() is part of the allocator itself and is expected to manipulate freed memory for bookkeeping purposes.

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CVE-2025-71110 — mm/slub: reset KASAN tag in defer_free() before accessing freed memory