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wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs

Published Oct 7, 2025

Description

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 products

Remediation

Red Hat statement

Memory leak.

Weaknesses (2)

References (14)

Change history (0)

No recorded changes yet.

Sources

CVE.org / MITRE

Status PUBLISHED
Assigner Linux
Published Oct 7, 2025
Updated May 11, 2026
Reserved Oct 7, 2025

CISA Vulnrichment

No data

NVD

Status Analyzed
Modified Jun 17, 2026

Red Hat

Severity Moderate
Public date Oct 7, 2025
Bugzilla 2402188

ENISA EUVD

Assigner Linux
Published Oct 7, 2025
Updated May 11, 2026

GitHub

No data