CVE-2025-38646

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

wifi: rtw89: avoid NULL dereference when RX problematic packet on unsupported 6 GHz band

With a quite rare chance, RX report might be problematic to make SW think a packet is received on 6 GHz band even if the chip does not support 6 GHz band actually. Since SW won't initialize stuffs for unsupported bands, NULL dereference will happen then in the sequence, rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter() -> rtw89_core_cancel_6ghz_probe_tx(). So, add a check to avoid it.

The following is a crash log for this case.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000032 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 1907 Comm: irq/131-rtw89_p Tainted: G U 6.6.56-05896-g89f5fb0eb30b #1 (HASH:1400 4) Hardware name: Google Telith/Telith, BIOS Google_Telith.15217.747.0 11/12/2024 RIP: 0010:rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter+0xd2/0x310 [rtw89_core] Code: 4c 89 7d c8 48 89 55 c0 49 8d 44 24 02 48 89 45 b8 45 31 ff eb 11 41 c6 45 3a 01 41 b7 01 4d 8b 6d 00 4d 39 f5 74 42 8b 43 10 <41> 33 45 32 0f b7 4b 14 66 41 33 4d 36 0f b7 c9 09 c1 74 d8 4d 85 RSP: 0018:ffff9f3080138ca0 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 00000000b8bf5770 RBX: ffff91b5e8c639c0 RCX: 0000000000000011 RDX: ffff91b582de1be8 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff91b5e8c639e6 RBP: ffff9f3080138d00 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffff91b59de70000 R11: ffffffffc069be50 R12: ffff91b5e8c639e4 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff91b5828020b8 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff91b8efa40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000032 CR3: 00000002bf838000 CR4: 0000000000750ee0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <IRQ> ? __die_body+0x68/0xb0 ? page_fault_oops+0x379/0x3e0 ? exc_page_fault+0x4f/0xa0 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 ? __pfx_rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter+0x10/0x10 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)] ? rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter+0xd2/0x310 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)] __iterate_interfaces+0x59/0x110 [mac80211 (HASH:1400 6)] ? __pfx_rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter+0x10/0x10 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)] ? __pfx_rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter+0x10/0x10 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)] ieee80211_iterate_active_interfaces_atomic+0x36/0x50 [mac80211 (HASH:1400 6)] rtw89_core_rx_to_mac80211+0xfd/0x1b0 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)] rtw89_core_rx+0x43a/0x980 [rtw89_core (HASH:1400 5)]

A NULL-deref in rtw89_vif_rx_stats_iter() could be hit when the NIC/firmware wrongly tags an RX report as 6 GHz on hardware that doesn’t support 6 GHz; the driver later dereferenced uninitialized per-band data and crashed. Because this is triggered on receive path, no local privileges are required (PR:N)—an attacker within RF range could potentially provoke it by sending crafted management/data frames, though it also depends on a rare firmware misreport (so likelihood is low). Impact is availability only (CIA: NNH): the usual outcome is a kernel oops/panic

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.