When AI Makes 0-Days Feel Like N-Days
The author used AI to locate a use‑after‑free vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s net/sched subsystem and crafted a local‑privilege escalation exploit targeting CentOS 9. The flaw originates from a lock‑mismatch that allows a race condition when actions are freed without proper RCU synchronization. Additional exploitable bugs were found in kernel/events/core.c, and the work was demonstrated at TyphoonPwn 2026.
- ▪AI assisted in discovering a use‑after‑free bug in the net/sched packet scheduling subsystem of the Linux kernel.
- ▪The vulnerability is caused by a lock‑mismatch that permits a race condition during action lookup and free, leading to a UAF scenario.
- ▪An LPE exploit was built and tested against CentOS 9 desktop, showcased at TyphoonPwn 2026.
- ▪The author also identified two more exploitable bugs in kernel/events/core.c, providing further LPE examples.
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| Original publisher | STAR Labs |
| Canonical URL | https://starlabs.sg/blog/2026/07-when-ai-makes-0-days-feel-like-n-days/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:40:48 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-28T10:59:35.201Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-28T10:59:35.201Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | DJBPmYTL7ZTf · 1 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Research July 27, 2026 By Lee Jia Jie (@mkofdwu) 17 min read When AI Makes 0-Days Feel Like N-Days Table of Contents Introduction AI usage Brief conceptual overview of net/sched The bug How are these functions reached? Extra requirements Race optimization 1. Binder threads 2. Deleter threads Final race setup kASLR leak Exploit - primitives Reclaim object RCU KEYCTL_UPDATE spray RIP control to arbitrary write One final, minor bug Final exploit Demo video TyphoonPwn 2026 results Other bugs found Closing thoughts Introduction After my n-day analysis on net/tls bugs and exploit writing for a patched net/rxrpc bug, I moved on to 0-day bug hunting. With the help of AI, I found a UAF bug in net/sched, and went about creating an LPE exploit based on it.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at STAR Labs.
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