Lock Release

Judging from some of the other recovery methods described in this document, it can be seen that one of the biggest limiting factors has to do with locks being held when recovery is attempted. To deal with this problem, one would have to implement a solution that was capable of releasing held locks prior to using a recovery method. This is more of a theoretical solution than a concrete one, but if it were possible to release locks held by a thread prior to recovery, then it would be possible to use some of the more elegant recovery methods. As it stands, though, the authors are not aware of a feasible solution to this problem that is capable of releasing the various types of locks in a general manner. Instead, it would most likely be better to attack this problem on a per-vulnerability basis rather than attempting to come up with an all-encompassing solution.

Without a proper lock releasing solution, it is likely that even if a vulnerability can be triggered, the box may deadlock. Again, this is highly dependent on the vulnerability in question, but it's not something that should be considered an academic concern.