Skip to main content

Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

CVE-2025-37743

Severity Medium
Score 5.5/10

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: ath12k: Avoid memory leak while enabling statistics Driver uses monitor destination rings for extended statistics mode and standalone monitor mode. In extended statistics mode, TLVs are parsed from the buffer received from the monitor destination ring and assigned to the ppdu_info structure to update per-packet statistics. In standalone monitor mode, along with per-packet statistics, the packet data (payload) is captured, and the driver updates per MSDU to mac80211. When the AP interface is enabled, only extended statistics mode is activated. As part of enabling monitor rings for collecting statistics, the driver subscribes to HAL_RX_MPDU_START TLV in the filter configuration. This TLV is received from the monitor destination ring, and kzalloc for the mon_mpdu object occurs, which is not freed, leading to a memory leak. The kzalloc for the mon_mpdu object is only required while enabling the standalone monitor interface. This causes a memory leak while enabling extended statistics mode in the driver. Fix this memory leak by removing the kzalloc for the mon_mpdu object in the HAL_RX_MPDU_START TLV handling. Additionally, remove the standalone monitor mode handlings in the HAL_MON_BUF_ADDR and HAL_RX_MSDU_END TLVs. These TLV tags will be handled properly when enabling standalone monitor mode in the future. Tested-on: QCN9274 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.WBE.1.3.1-00173-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1 Tested-on: WCN7850 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HMT.1.0.c5-00481-QCAHMTSWPL_V1.0_V2.0_SILICONZ-3

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • NONE
  • HIGH

CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)

'Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)' is a weakness that occurs when software doesn't effectively release allocated memory after it is used. If not addressed, this enables attackers to launch denial of service attacks (by crashing or hanging the program) or take advantage of other unexpected behavior resulting from low memory conditions.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published