CVE-2026-53273: tee: optee: prevent use-after-free when the client exits before the supplicant

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-53273 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4.3% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 25-06-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 19-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tee: optee: prevent use-after-free when the client exits before the supplicant Commit 70b0d6b0a199 ("tee: optee: Fix supplicant wait loop") made the client wait as killable so it can be interrupted during shutdown or after a supplicant crash. This changes the original lifetime expectations: the client task can now terminate while the supplicant is still processing its request. If the client exits first it removes the request from its queue and kfree()s it, while the request ID remains in supp->idr. A subsequent lookup on the supplicant path then dereferences freed memory, leading to a use-after-free. Serialise access to the request with supp->mutex: * Hold supp->mutex in optee_supp_recv() and optee_supp_send() while looking up and touching the request. * Let optee_supp_thrd_req() notice that the client has terminated and signal optee_supp_send() accordingly. With these changes the request cannot be freed while the supplicant still has a reference, eliminating the race.

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.