Bug 2402188 (CVE-2023-53641) - CVE-2023-53641 kernel: wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs
Summary: CVE-2023-53641 kernel: wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2023-53641
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-10-07 16:01 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2025-10-15 14:02 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-10-07 16:01:38 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs

hif_dev->remain_skb is allocated and used exclusively in
ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). It is implied that an allocated remain_skb is
processed and subsequently freed (in error paths) only during the next
call of ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream().

So, if the urbs are deallocated between those two calls due to the device
deinitialization or suspend, it is possible that ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream()
is not called next time and the allocated remain_skb is leaked. Our local
Syzkaller instance was able to trigger that.

remain_skb makes sense when receiving two consecutive urbs which are
logically linked together, i.e. a specific data field from the first skb
indicates a cached skb to be allocated, memcpy'd with some data and
subsequently processed in the next call to ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). Urbs
deallocation supposedly makes that link irrelevant so we need to free the
cached skb in those cases.

Fix the leak by introducing a function to explicitly free remain_skb (if
it is not NULL) when the rx urbs have been deallocated. remain_skb is NULL
when it has not been allocated at all (hif_dev struct is kzalloced) or
when it has been processed in next call to ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream().

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.


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