Bug 2383460 (CVE-2025-38420)

Summary:	CVE-2025-38420 kernel: Linux kernel: Denial of Service in carl9170 Wi-Fi driver via ping to failed device
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	unspecified	CC:	rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:	A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's carl9170 Wi-Fi driver. A local or adjacent attacker could trigger a null-pointer dereference by attempting to ping a Wi-Fi device that failed to load its firmware. This issue occurs because the internal workqueue for the device is not properly initialized, leading to a system crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-07-25 15:02:00 UTC

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

wifi: carl9170: do not ping device which has failed to load firmware

Syzkaller reports [1, 2] crashes caused by an attempts to ping
the device which has failed to load firmware. Since such a device
doesn't pass 'ieee80211_register_hw()', an internal workqueue
managed by 'ieee80211_queue_work()' is not yet created and an
attempt to queue work on it causes null-ptr-deref.

[1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=9a4aec827829942045ff
[2] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=0d8afba53e8fb2633217

Comment 1 Jon Moroney 2025-07-25 17:47:52 UTC

Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025072552-CVE-2025-38420-13a5@gregkh/T