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CVE-2022-50709

Our Analysis: General-Purpose

Our model has classified this vulnerability as relevant to General-Purpose Systems, helping your team prioritize efforts effectively.

Published Date December 24, 2025
Last Modified December 29, 2025
CVSS Vector Not Available

Description

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

wifi: ath9k: avoid uninit memory read in ath9k_htc_rx_msg()

syzbot is reporting uninit value at ath9k_htc_rx_msg() [1], for
ioctl(USB_RAW_IOCTL_EP_WRITE) can call ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() with
pkt_len = 0 but ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() uses
__dev_alloc_skb(pkt_len + 32, GFP_ATOMIC) based on an assumption that
pkt_len is valid. As a result, ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() allocates skb
with uninitialized memory and ath9k_htc_rx_msg() is reading from
uninitialized memory.

Since bytes accessed by ath9k_htc_rx_msg() is not known until
ath9k_htc_rx_msg() is called, it would be difficult to check minimal valid
pkt_len at "if (pkt_len > 2 * MAX_RX_BUF_SIZE) {" line in
ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream().

We have two choices. One is to workaround by adding __GFP_ZERO so that
ath9k_htc_rx_msg() sees 0 if pkt_len is invalid. The other is to let
ath9k_htc_rx_msg() validate pkt_len before accessing. This patch chose
the latter.

Note that I'm not sure threshold condition is correct, for I can't find
details on possible packet length used by this protocol.