CVE-2023-53641 PUBLISHED

wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 07.10.2025 Published: 07.10.2025 Updated: 07.10.2025

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.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 6719e3797ec52cd144c8a5ba8aaab36674800585 (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to d9899318660791141ea6002fda5577b2c5d7386e (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 320d760a35273aa815d58b57e4fd9ba5279a3489 (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 59073060fe0950c6ecbe12bdc06469dcac62128d (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 9b9356a3014123f0ce4b50d9278c1265173150ab (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to f0931fc8f4b6847c72e170d2326861c0a081d680 (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 8f02d538878c9b1501f624595eb22ee4e5e0ff84 (excl.)
  • affected from fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 to 7654cc03eb699297130b693ec34e25f77b17c947 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.35 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.35 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 4.19.283 to 4.19.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.4.243 to 5.4.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.10.180 to 5.10.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.15.111 to 5.15.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.28 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.2.15 to 6.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.3.2 to 6.3.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.4 to * (incl.)

References