Message-ID: <2025101518-CVE-2025-40000-8817@gregkh>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 09:59:19 +0200
From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To: linux-cve-announce@...r.kernel.org
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>
Subject: CVE-2025-40000: wifi: rtw89: fix use-after-free in rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait()

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>

Description
===========

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: rtw89: fix use-after-free in rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait()

There is a bug observed when rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait() tries to
access already freed skb_data:

 BUG: KFENCE: use-after-free write in rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c:1110

 CPU: 6 UID: 0 PID: 41377 Comm: kworker/u64:24 Not tainted  6.17.0-rc1+ #1 PREEMPT(lazy)
 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS edk2-20250523-14.fc42 05/23/2025
 Workqueue: events_unbound cfg80211_wiphy_work [cfg80211]

 Use-after-free write at 0x0000000020309d9d (in kfence-#251):
 rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c:1110
 rtw89_core_scan_complete drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c:5338
 rtw89_hw_scan_complete_cb drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:7979
 rtw89_chanctx_proceed_cb drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/chan.c:3165
 rtw89_chanctx_proceed drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/chan.h:141
 rtw89_hw_scan_complete drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:8012
 rtw89_mac_c2h_scanofld_rsp drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/mac.c:5059
 rtw89_fw_c2h_work drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:6758
 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3241
 worker_thread kernel/workqueue.c:3400
 kthread kernel/kthread.c:463
 ret_from_fork arch/x86/kernel/process.c:154
 ret_from_fork_asm arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:258

 kfence-#251: 0x0000000056e2393d-0x000000009943cb62, size=232, cache=skbuff_head_cache

 allocated by task 41377 on cpu 6 at 77869.159548s (0.009551s ago):
 __alloc_skb net/core/skbuff.c:659
 __netdev_alloc_skb net/core/skbuff.c:734
 ieee80211_nullfunc_get net/mac80211/tx.c:5844
 rtw89_core_send_nullfunc drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c:3431
 rtw89_core_scan_complete drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c:5338
 rtw89_hw_scan_complete_cb drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:7979
 rtw89_chanctx_proceed_cb drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/chan.c:3165
 rtw89_chanctx_proceed drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/chan.c:3194
 rtw89_hw_scan_complete drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:8012
 rtw89_mac_c2h_scanofld_rsp drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/mac.c:5059
 rtw89_fw_c2h_work drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/fw.c:6758
 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3241
 worker_thread kernel/workqueue.c:3400
 kthread kernel/kthread.c:463
 ret_from_fork arch/x86/kernel/process.c:154
 ret_from_fork_asm arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:258

 freed by task 1045 on cpu 9 at 77869.168393s (0.001557s ago):
 ieee80211_tx_status_skb net/mac80211/status.c:1117
 rtw89_pci_release_txwd_skb drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c:564
 rtw89_pci_release_tx_skbs.isra.0 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c:651
 rtw89_pci_release_tx drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c:676
 rtw89_pci_napi_poll drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c:4238
 __napi_poll net/core/dev.c:7495
 net_rx_action net/core/dev.c:7557 net/core/dev.c:7684
 handle_softirqs kernel/softirq.c:580
 do_softirq.part.0 kernel/softirq.c:480
 __local_bh_enable_ip kernel/softirq.c:407
 rtw89_pci_interrupt_threadfn drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c:927
 irq_thread_fn kernel/irq/manage.c:1133
 irq_thread kernel/irq/manage.c:1257
 kthread kernel/kthread.c:463
 ret_from_fork arch/x86/kernel/process.c:154
 ret_from_fork_asm arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:258

It is a consequence of a race between the waiting and the signaling side
of the completion:

            Waiting thread                            Completing thread

rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait()
  rcu_assign_pointer(skb_data->wait, wait)
  /* start waiting */
  wait_for_completion_timeout()
                                                rtw89_pci_tx_status()
                                                  rtw89_core_tx_wait_complete()
                                                    rcu_read_lock()
                                                    /* signals completion and
                                                     * proceeds further
                                                     */
                                                    complete(&wait->completion)
                                                    rcu_read_unlock()
                                                  ...
                                                  /* frees skb_data */
                                                  ieee80211_tx_status_ni()
  /* returns (exit status doesn't matter) */
  wait_for_completion_timeout()
  ...
  /* accesses the already freed skb_data */
  rcu_assign_pointer(skb_data->wait, NULL)

The completing side might proceed and free the underlying skb even before
the waiting side is fully awoken and run to execution.  Actually the race
happens regardless of wait_for_completion_timeout() exit status, e.g.
the waiting side may hit a timeout and the concurrent completing side is
still able to free the skb.

Skbs which are sent by rtw89_core_tx_kick_off_and_wait() are owned by the
driver.  They don't come from core ieee80211 stack so no need to pass them
to ieee80211_tx_status_ni() on completing side.

Introduce a work function which will act as a garbage collector for
rtw89_tx_wait_info objects and the associated skbs.  Thus no potentially
heavy locks are required on the completing side.

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).

The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2025-40000 to this issue.


Affected and fixed versions
===========================

	Issue introduced in 6.4 with commit 1ae5ca615285d5d4f72d1de464716d85dffef19f and fixed in 6.12.52 with commit 895cccf639ac015f3d5f993218cf098db82ac145
	Issue introduced in 6.4 with commit 1ae5ca615285d5d4f72d1de464716d85dffef19f and fixed in 6.16.12 with commit f21f530b03b4b23448edb531a0cfea434cb76bb4
	Issue introduced in 6.4 with commit 1ae5ca615285d5d4f72d1de464716d85dffef19f and fixed in 6.17.1 with commit bdb3c41b358cf87d99e39d393e164f9e4a6088e6
	Issue introduced in 6.4 with commit 1ae5ca615285d5d4f72d1de464716d85dffef19f and fixed in 6.18-rc1 with commit 3e31a6bc07312b448fad3b45de578471f86f0e77

Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.

Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions.  The official CVE entry at
	https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2025-40000
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.


Affected files
==============

The file(s) affected by this issue are:
	drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.c
	drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/core.h
	drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/pci.c
	drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/ser.c


Mitigation
==========

The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes.  Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release.  Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all.  If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/895cccf639ac015f3d5f993218cf098db82ac145
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f21f530b03b4b23448edb531a0cfea434cb76bb4
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bdb3c41b358cf87d99e39d393e164f9e4a6088e6
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e31a6bc07312b448fad3b45de578471f86f0e77

Powered by blists - more mailing lists