In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: mac80211: fix NULL deref in mesh_matches_local()
mesh_matches_local() unconditionally dereferences ie->mesh_config to
compare mesh configuration parameters. When called from
mesh_rx_csa_frame(), the parsed action-frame elements may not contain a
Mesh Configuration IE, leaving ie->mesh_config NULL and triggering a
kernel NULL pointer dereference.
The other two callers are already safe:
- ieee80211_mesh_rx_bcn_presp() checks !elems->mesh_config before
calling mesh_matches_local()
- mesh_plink_get_event() is only reached through
mesh_process_plink_frame(), which checks !elems->mesh_config, too
mesh_rx_csa_frame() is the only caller that passes raw parsed elements
to mesh_matches_local() without guarding mesh_config. An adjacent
attacker can exploit this by sending a crafted CSA action frame that
includes a valid Mesh ID IE but omits the Mesh Configuration IE,
crashing the kernel.
The captured crash log:
Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address ...
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007]
Workqueue: events_unbound cfg80211_wiphy_work
[...]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
? __pfx_mesh_matches_local (net/mac80211/mesh.c:65)
ieee80211_mesh_rx_queued_mgmt (net/mac80211/mesh.c:1686)
[...]
ieee80211_iface_work (net/mac80211/iface.c:1754 net/mac80211/iface.c:1802)
[...]
cfg80211_wiphy_work (net/wireless/core.c:426)
process_one_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3280)
? assign_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:1219)
worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3352)
? __pfx_worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3385)
kthread (net/kernel/kthread.c:436)
[...]
ret_from_fork_asm (net/arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:255)
</TASK>
This patch adds a NULL check for ie->mesh_config at the top of
mesh_matches_local() to return false early when the Mesh Configuration
IE is absent.