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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2022-50709 json

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

published 2025-12-24 10 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-205175

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.14.296, 4.19.262, 5.4.220, 5.10.150, 5.15.75, 5.19.17, 6.0.3, 6.1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50709

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-204.215
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-139.156
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-60.66
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1150.163
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1096.104
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1030.34
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1100.109
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1029.36

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50709

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +5 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:0617-1SUSE-SU-2026:0473-1SUSE-SU-2026:0411-1SUSE-SU-2026:0369-1SUSE-SU-2026:0350-1SUSE-SU-2026:0317-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-50709 updated cvss 5.5

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

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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