CVE-2022-50279: wifi: rtlwifi: Fix global-out-of-bounds bug in _rtl8812ae_phy_set_txpower_limit()

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2022-50279 is a high (CVSS 7.1) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 15-09-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rtlwifi: Fix global-out-of-bounds bug in _rtl8812ae_phy_set_txpower_limit() There is a global-out-of-bounds reported by KASAN: BUG: KASAN: global-out-of-bounds in _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte.part.0+0x3d/0x84 [rtl8821ae] Read of size 1 at addr ffffffffa0773c43 by task NetworkManager/411 CPU: 6 PID: 411 Comm: NetworkManager Tainted: G D 6.1.0-rc8+ #144 e15588508517267d37 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), Call Trace: <TASK> ... kasan_report+0xbb/0x1c0 _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte.part.0+0x3d/0x84 [rtl8821ae] rtl8821ae_phy_bb_config.cold+0x346/0x641 [rtl8821ae] rtl8821ae_hw_init+0x1f5e/0x79b0 [rtl8821ae] ... </TASK> The root cause of the problem is that the comparison order of "prate_section" in _rtl8812ae_phy_set_txpower_limit() is wrong. The _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte() is used to compare the first n bytes of the two strings from tail to head, which causes the problem. In the _rtl8812ae_phy_set_txpower_limit(), it was originally intended to meet this requirement by carefully designing the comparison order. For example, "pregulation" and "pbandwidth" are compared in order of length from small to large, first is 3 and last is 4. However, the comparison order of "prate_section" dose not obey such order requirement, therefore when "prate_section" is "HT", when comparing from tail to head, it will lead to access out of bounds in _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte(). As mentioned above, the _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte() has the same function as strcmp(), so just strcmp() is enough. Fix it by removing _rtl8812ae_eq_n_byte() and use strcmp() barely. Although it can be fixed by adjusting the comparison order of "prate_section", this may cause the value of "rate_section" to not be from 0 to 5. In addition, commit "21e4b0726dc6" not only moved driver from staging to regular tree, but also added setting txpower limit function during the driver config phase, so the problem was introduced by this commit.

• CWE-125Out-of-bounds ReadThe product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.