In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: workqueue: Fix spruious data race in __flush_work() When flushing a work item for cancellation, __flush_work() knows that it exclusively owns the work item through its PENDING bit. 134874e2eee9 ("workqueue: Allow cancel_work_sync() and disable_work() from atomic contexts on BH work items") added a read of @work->data to determine whether to use busy wait for BH work items that are being canceled. While the read is safe when @from_cancel, @work->data was read before testing @from_cancel to simplify code structure: data = *work_data_bits(work); if (from_cancel && !WARN_ON_ONCE(data & WORK_STRUCT_PWQ) && (data & WORK_OFFQ_BH)) { While the read data was never used if !@from_cancel, this could trigger KCSAN data race detection spuriously: ================================================================== BUG: KCSAN: data-race in __flush_work / __flush_work write to 0xffff8881223aa3e8 of 8 bytes by task 3…