Bug 2545922 (CVE-2026-93515)

present_clear_window_notifies() does not unlink notify entries from the
per-window list before freeing window_priv. When the window is
subsequently destroyed or reused, the stale list entries are traversed,
resulting in a use-after-free.

An authenticated X client can trigger this by creating cross-window
Present notifies and then destroying the target window. Both the
Present and SYNC extensions must be enabled (they are by default).

The use-after-free can lead to denial of service (crash) or potentially
information disclosure.

Fixed in: xorg-server-21.1.25 and xwayland-24.1.14



* Patch
From 4ce3e830831dbeae1a54e510b78c4e09fb294605 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:04:47 +1000
Subject: [PATCH xserver] present: unlink notifies from window list in
 present_clear_window_notifies

When a window is destroyed, present_clear_window_notifies()
does not remove the notify list node from the window. The notify
may then be freed as part of the window_priv, leaving dangling
pointers in place.

When the vblank owning the notify is later torn down,
present_free_window_notify() calls xorg_list_del() which
writes through these dangling pointers (use-after-free write).

This happens when Present cross-window notifies are used: a
PresentPixmap on window A can reference window B as a notify target.
An untriggered wait_fence keeps the vblank alive so that B can be
destroyed first, creating the dangling-pointer window.

Fix this by calling the free function we have (and moving the window
reset into that function too). present_clear_window_notifies is only
called from one place anyway.

This vulnerability was discovered by:
  Anonymous working with TrendAI Zero Day Initiative

ZDI-CAN-31830

CVE-2026-93515

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-6
#+begin_src diff
---
 present/present_notify.c | 7 ++++---
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/present/present_notify.c b/present/present_notify.c
index 1f9ff7474145..7cb0ad5b2dc8 100644
--- a/present/present_notify.c
+++ b/present/present_notify.c
@@ -25,34 +25,35 @@
 /*
  ,* Mark all pending notifies for 'window' as invalid when
  ,* the window is destroyed
  ,*/
 
 void
 present_clear_window_notifies(WindowPtr window)
 {
-    present_notify_ptr          notify;
+    present_notify_ptr          notify, tmp;
     present_window_priv_ptr     window_priv = present_window_priv(window);
 
     if (!window_priv)
         return;
 
-    xorg_list_for_each_entry(notify, &window_priv->notifies, window_list) {
-        notify->window = NULL;
+    xorg_list_for_each_entry_safe(notify, tmp, &window_priv->notifies, window_list) {
+        present_free_window_notify(notify);
     }
 }
 
 /*
  ,* 'notify' is being freed; remove it from the window's notify list
  ,*/
 
 void
 present_free_window_notify(present_notify_ptr notify)
 {
+    notify->window = NULL;
     xorg_list_del(&notify->window_list);
 }
 
 /*
  ,* 'notify' is new; add it to the specified window
  ,*/
 
 int
-- 
2.55.0
#+end_src