Bug 2373551 (CVE-2022-50179)

Summary: CVE-2022-50179 kernel: ath9k: fix use-after-free in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_cb
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: dfreiber, drow, jburrell, vkumar
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-06-18 12:07:56 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ath9k: fix use-after-free in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_cb

Syzbot reported use-after-free Read in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_cb() [0]. The
problem was in incorrect htc_handle->drv_priv initialization.

Probable call trace which can trigger use-after-free:

ath9k_htc_probe_device()
  /* htc_handle->drv_priv = priv; */
  ath9k_htc_wait_for_target()      <--- Failed
  ieee80211_free_hw()		   <--- priv pointer is freed

<IRQ>
...
ath9k_hif_usb_rx_cb()
  ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream()
   RX_STAT_INC()		<--- htc_handle->drv_priv access

In order to not add fancy protection for drv_priv we can move
htc_handle->drv_priv initialization at the end of the
ath9k_htc_probe_device() and add helper macro to make
all *_STAT_* macros NULL safe, since syzbot has reported related NULL
deref in that macros [1]
Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-06-19 13:45:53 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025061832-CVE-2022-50179-92c5@gregkh/T