CVE-2024-46760: wifi: rtw88: usb: schedule rx work after everything is set up

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-09-18 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rtw88: usb: schedule rx work after everything is set up Right now it's possible to hit NULL pointer dereference in rtw_rx_fill_rx_status on hw object and/or its fields because initialization routine can start getting USB replies before rtw_dev is fully setup. The stack trace looks like this: rtw_rx_fill_rx_status rtw8821c_query_rx_desc rtw_usb_rx_handler ... queue_work rtw_usb_read_port_complete ... usb_submit_urb rtw_usb_rx_resubmit rtw_usb_init_rx rtw_usb_probe So while we do the async stuff rtw_usb_probe continues and calls rtw_register_hw, which does all kinds of initialization (e.g. via ieee80211_register_hw) that rtw_rx_fill_rx_status relies on. Fix this by moving the first usb_submit_urb after everything is set up. For me, this bug manifested as: [ 8.893177] rtw_8821cu 1-1:1.2: band wrong, packet dropped [ 8.910904] rtw_8821cu 1-1:1.2: hw->conf.chandef.chan NULL in rtw_rx_fill_rx_status because I'm using Larry's backport of rtw88 driver with the NULL checks in rtw_rx_fill_rx_status.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 6.6.51; from 6.7 before 6.10.10 — fixed in 6.10.10, 6.6.51

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.10.10, 6.6.51. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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