CVE-2022-50665 wifi: ath11k: fix failed to find the peer with peer_id 0 when disconnected
A missing initialization in the ath11k WiFi driver causes a kernel crash when processing monitor status frames during scanning.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2022-50665?
CVE-2022-50665 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 Dec 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: ath11k: fix failed to find the peer with peer_id 0 when disconnected
It has a fail log which is ath11k_dbg in ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_status(), as below, it will not print when debug_mask is not set ATH11K_DBG_DATA. ath11k_dbg(ab, ATH11K_DBG_DATA, "failed to find the peer with peer_id %d\n", ppdu_info.peer_id);
When run scan with station disconnected, the peer_id is 0 for case HAL_RX_MPDU_START in ath11k_hal_rx_parse_mon_status_tlv() which called from ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_status(), and the peer_id of ppdu_info is reset to 0 in the while loop, so it does not match condition of the check "if (ppdu_info->peer_id == HAL_INVALID_PEERID" in the loop, and then the log "failed to find the peer with peer_id 0" print after the check in the loop, it is below call stack when debug_mask is set ATH11K_DBG_DATA.
The reason is this commit 01d2f285e3e5 ("ath11k: decode HE status tlv") add "memset(ppdu_info, 0, sizeof(struct hal_rx_mon_ppdu_info))" in ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_status(), but the commit does not initialize the peer_id to HAL_INVALID_PEERID, then lead the check mis-match.
Callstack of the failed log: [12335.689072] RIP: 0010:ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_status+0x9ea/0x1020 [ath11k] [12335.689157] Code: 89 ff e8 f9 10 00 00 be 01 00 00 00 4c 89 f7 e8 dc 4b 4e de 48 8b 85 38 ff ff ff c7 80 e4 07 00 00 01 00 00 00 e9 20 f8 ff ff <0f> 0b 41 0f b7 96 be 06 00 00 48 c7 c6 b8 50 44 c1 4c 89 ff e8 fd [12335.689180] RSP: 0018:ffffb874001a4ca0 EFLAGS: 00010246 [12335.689210] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff995642cbd100 RCX: 0000000000000000 [12335.689229] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff99564212cd18 [12335.689248] RBP: ffffb874001a4dc0 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000000 [12335.689268] R10: 0000000000000220 R11: ffffb874001a48e8 R12: ffff995642473d40 [12335.689286] R13: ffff99564212c5b8 R14: ffff9956424736a0 R15: ffff995642120000 [12335.689303] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff995739000000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [12335.689323] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [12335.689341] CR2: 00007f43c5d5e039 CR3: 000000011c012005 CR4: 00000000000606e0 [12335.689360] Call Trace: [12335.689377] <IRQ> [12335.689418] ? rcu_read_lock_held_common+0x12/0x50 [12335.689447] ? rcu_read_lock_sched_held+0x25/0x80 [12335.689471] ? rcu_read_lock_held_common+0x12/0x50 [12335.689504] ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_rings+0x8d/0x4f0 [ath11k] [12335.689578] ? ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_rings+0x8d/0x4f0 [ath11k] [12335.689653] ? lock_acquire+0xef/0x360 [12335.689681] ? rcu_read_lock_sched_held+0x25/0x80 [12335.689713] ath11k_dp_service_mon_ring+0x38/0x60 [ath11k] [12335.689784] ? ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_rings+0x4f0/0x4f0 [ath11k] [12335.689860] call_timer_fn+0xb2/0x2f0 [12335.689897] ? ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_rings+0x4f0/0x4f0 [ath11k] [12335.689970] run_timer_softirq+0x21f/0x540 [12335.689999] ? ktime_get+0xad/0x160 [12335.690025] ? lapic_next_deadline+0x2c/0x40 [12335.690053] ? clockevents_program_event+0x82/0x100 [12335.690093] __do_softirq+0x151/0x4a8 [12335.690135] irq_exit_rcu+0xc9/0x100 [12335.690165] sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0xa8/0xd0 [12335.690189] </IRQ> [12335.690204] <TASK> [12335.690225] asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x12/0x20
Reset the default value to HAL_INVALID_PEERID each time after memset of ppdu_info as well as others memset which existed in function ath11k_dp_rx_process_mon_status(), then the failed log disappeared.
Tested-on: WCN6855 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HSP.1.1-03125-QCAHSPSWPL_V1_V2_SILICONZ_LITE-3
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50665?
How do I fix CVE-2022-50665?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2022-50665 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50665 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50665, GHSA-ppjq-9892-q46w, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50665.