In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: mdio: unexport __init-annotated mdio_bus_init()

EXPORT_SYMBOL and __init is a bad combination because the .init.text
section is freed up after the initialization. Hence, modules cannot
use symbols annotated __init. The access to a freed symbol may end up
with kernel panic.

modpost used to detect it, but it has been broken for a decade.

Recently, I fixed modpost so it started to warn it again, then this
showed up in linux-next builds.

There are two ways to fix it:

  - Remove __init
  - Remove EXPORT_SYMBOL

I chose the latter for this case because the only in-tree call-site,
drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c is never compiled as modular.
(CONFIG_PHYLIB is boolean)

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/35b42dce619701f1300fb8498dae82c9bb1f0263

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5534bcd7c40299862237c4a8fd9c5031b3db1538

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59fa94cddf9eef8d8dae587373eed8b8f4eb11d7

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a90a44d53428a3bf01bd80df9ba78b19959270c

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7759c3222815b945a94b212bc0c6cdec475cfec2

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ab64ec2c75683f30ccde9eaaf0761002f901aa12

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f2f0f8c18b60ca64ff50892ed899cf1c77864755

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f5c68137f1191ba3fcf6260ec71b30be2e2bf4c3