In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tls: fix race between async notify and socket close The submitting thread (one which called recvmsg/sendmsg) may exit as soon as the async crypto handler calls complete() so any code past that point risks touching already freed data. Try to avoid the locking and extra flags altogether. Have the main thread hold an extra reference, this way we can depend solely on the atomic ref counter for synchronization. Don't futz with reiniting the completion, either, we are now tightly controlling when completion fires.