CVE-2025-68254 staging: rtl8723bs: fix out-of-bounds read in OnBeacon ESR IE parsing
A malformed beacon frame can trigger an out-of-bounds read in the rtl8723bs driver, causing a kernel panic and denial of service.
- 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-2025-68254?
CVE-2025-68254 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 16 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:
staging: rtl8723bs: fix out-of-bounds read in OnBeacon ESR IE parsing
The Extended Supported Rates (ESR) IE handling in OnBeacon accessed *(p + 1 + ielen) and *(p + 2 + ielen) without verifying that these offsets lie within the received frame buffer. A malformed beacon with an ESR IE positioned at the end of the buffer could cause an out-of-bounds read, potentially triggering a kernel panic.
Add a boundary check to ensure that the ESR IE body and the subsequent bytes are within the limits of the frame before attempting to access them.
This prevents OOB reads caused by malformed beacon frames.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68254?
How do I fix CVE-2025-68254?
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-2025-68254 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68254 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-72514, BELL-CVE-2025-68254, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68254, GHSA-ggmq-6856-gj57, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-68254, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-68254 and 4 more.