CVE-2022-50279 wifi: rtlwifi: Fix global-out-of-bounds bug in _rtl8812ae_phy_set_txpower_limit()
A global out-of-bounds read in the rtlwifi driver can cause a kernel crash, requiring a patch to fix the string comparison logic.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2022-50279?
CVE-2022-50279 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 15 Sep 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official 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.
Weakness: CWE-125
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50279?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-50279?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2022-50279 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50279 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50279, GHSA-wwr7-fwgx-c7x5, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50279.