HIGH
rsi VIF Data Overflow
CVE-2026-23073
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
KernelScan AI7.8HIGH
01Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rsi: Fix memory corruption due to not set vif driver data size The struct ieee80211_vif contains trailing space for vif driver data, when struct ieee80211_vif is allocated, the total memory size that is allocated is sizeof(struct ieee80211_vif) + size of vif driver data. The size of vif driver data is set by each WiFi driver as needed. The RSI911x driver does not set vif driver data size, no trailing space for vif driver data is therefore allocated past struct ieee80211_vif . The RSI911x driver does however use the vif driver data to store its vif driver data structure "struct vif_priv". An access to vif->drv_priv leads to access out of struct ieee80211_vif bounds and corruption of some memory. In case of the failure observed locally, rsi_mac80211_add_interface() would write struct vif_priv *vif_info = (struct vif_priv *)vif->drv_priv; vif_info->vap_id = vap_idx. This write corrupts struct fq_tin member struct list_head new_flows . The flow = list_first_entry(head, struct fq_flow, flowchain); in fq_tin_reset() then reports non-NULL bogus address, which when accessed causes a crash. The trigger is very simple, boot the machine with init=/bin/sh , mount devtmpfs, sysfs, procfs, and then do "ip link set wlan0 up", "sleep 1", "ip link set wlan0 down" and the crash occurs. Fix this by setting the correct size of vif driver data, which is the size of "struct vif_priv", so that memory is allocated and the driver can store its driver data in it, instead of corrupting memory around it.
02KernelScan AI Analysis
Risk summary
A memory corruption vulnerability in the RSI WiFi driver allows local attackers to crash the system by simply bringing a WiFi interface up and down. The driver writes beyond allocated memory boundaries, corrupting kernel data structures and causing system instability. This affects any system with RSI911x WiFi hardware and can be exploited by users with network configuration privileges.
Vulnerability analysis
Root Cause: The RSI911x WiFi driver fails to set the vif_data_size field in the ieee80211_hw structure during initialization. This causes the mac80211 subsystem to allocate only sizeof(struct ieee80211_vif) bytes when creating virtual interfaces, without any trailing space for driver-specific data. However, the RSI driver assumes it can store a 'struct vif_priv' in the vif->drv_priv area, leading to out-of-bounds writes that corrupt adjacent memory structures.
Attack Surface: This vulnerability is triggered through standard network interface operations (bringing WiFi interface up/down) and requires local access to the system. The bug affects systems with RSI911x WiFi hardware and can be triggered by any user with sufficient privileges to manipulate network interfaces.
Fix Mechanism: The patch adds a single line 'hw->vif_data_size = sizeof(struct vif_priv);' to the rsi_mac80211_attach() function. This tells the mac80211 framework to allocate additional space equal to the size of struct vif_priv when creating ieee80211_vif structures, ensuring the driver's private data has proper memory allocation.
03Fix Versions
| Branch | Fixed in | Patch commit |
|---|---|---|
| 5.10 | 5.10.249 | 49ef094fdbc3 |
| 5.15 | 5.15.199 | 0d7c9e793e35 |
| 6.1 | 6.1.162 | 7c54d0c3e2ca |
| 6.12 | 6.12.68 | 99129d80a5d4 |
| 6.18 | 6.18.8 | 31efbcff9088 |
| 6.6 | 6.6.122 | 7761d7801f40 |
| mainline | 6.19 | 4f431d88ea80 |