# 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.

- **Severity:** High 7.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 15 Sep 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50279, GHSA-wwr7-fwgx-c7x5, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50279

## 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 (Out-of-bounds Read)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50279?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-50279?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## 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

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-50279 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50279 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50279/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50279/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50279
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50279
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50279

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50279/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.