CVEvulnerability
CVE-2023-53641
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Analyzed
- Published
- 2025-10-07
- Last modified
- 2026-06-17
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-401
Description
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.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.35 < 4.19.283)
• linux linux kernel (>= 4.20 < 5.4.243)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.5 < 5.10.180)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.11 < 5.15.111)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.16 < 6.1.28)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.2 < 6.2.15)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.3 < 6.3.2)
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/320d760a35273aa815d58b57e4fd9ba5279a3489 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59073060fe0950c6ecbe12bdc06469dcac62128d Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6719e3797ec52cd144c8a5ba8aaab36674800585 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7654cc03eb699297130b693ec34e25f77b17c947 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8f02d538878c9b1501f624595eb22ee4e5e0ff84 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9b9356a3014123f0ce4b50d9278c1265173150ab Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9899318660791141ea6002fda5577b2c5d7386e Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f0931fc8f4b6847c72e170d2326861c0a081d680 Patch