CVEvulnerability

CVE-2023-53641

5.5 MEDIUM Published 2025-10-07 Modified 2026-06-17 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