A use‑after‑free vulnerability exists within the batman‑adv driver of the Linux kernel. The flaw arises when the batadv_bla_del_backbone_claims() routine removes a backbone claim and deletes its hash‑list entry before the associated claim object has had all its references released. If the object is freed prematurely, subsequent accesses to that memory may cause a kernel crash, data corruption, or other erratic behaviour. No evidence in the advisory suggests privilege escalation, only kernel stability issues.

The issue is confined to Linux kernel implementations that include the batman‑adv networking module with the pre‑patch version of batadv_bla_del_backbone_claims(). All affected kernels that have this function compiled in are susceptible. Systems that enable the batman‑adv driver or use the module for network claim handling are at risk. No explicit version range is provided, so any kernel version before the patch should be considered vulnerable.

The CVSS score is not supplied in the data, and the EPSS score of <1% indicates a very low, but non‑zero, likelihood of exploitation. The vulnerability is a local kernel‑level use‑after‑free. An attacker with local or remote access to a host that processes batman‑adv traffic could in theory trigger the faulty clean‑up path. Because the flaw does not involve credential validation or input parsing directly, it is inferred that a privileged or otherwise compromised process would be required to exercise the dangerous code path. The fault is not currently listed in CISA’s KEV catalog, suggesting no active exploitation reports presently.