A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's keyrings garbage collector allowing any local user account to trigger a kernel panic.

Problem arrises when using request_key() or keyctl request2.

This code sequence tries to invoke an upcall to instantiate a keyring if one doesn't already exist by that name within the user's keyring set. However, if the upcall fails, the code sets keyring->type_data.reject_error to -ENOKEY or some other error code.  When the key is garbage collected, the key destroy function is called unconditionally and keyring_destroy() uses list_empty() on keyring->type_data.link - which is in a union with reject_error. Subsequently, the kernel tries to unlink the keyring from the keyring names list, which leads to an oops.