CVE-2022-49328
Published: 26 February 2025
Summary
CVE-2022-49328 is a high-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 3.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2022-49328 is a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's mt76 wireless driver, specifically triggered in the mt76_txq_schedule function due to a non-RCU-protected wcid pointer in mtxq. The issue was detected by KASAN during read access to a freed memory address, occurring between sta_info_alloc and sta_info_free operations in the wireless stack involving mac80211 and cfg80211 components. It affects systems using the mt76 driver, such as those with MediaTek WiFi chipsets like mt7921, on kernel versions including 5.10.100.
A local attacker with low privileges (PR:L) can exploit this vulnerability with low complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction (UI:N), potentially achieving high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts (CVSS 7.8). Exploitation occurs in scenarios like WiFi authentication, connection preparation, deauthentication, or during wiphy_suspend, where tx queue scheduling races with station info allocation and freeing, leading to use-after-free in the mt76-tx worker thread.
Kernel stable patches address the issue by protecting the mtxq->wcid pointer with RCU locks between mt76_txq_schedule and sta_info_alloc/free operations. Relevant commits include 4448327b41738dbfcda680eb4935ff835568f468, 51fb1278aa57ae0fc54adaa786e1965362bed4fb, d5f77f1dbb59feae81f88e44551e8e1d8a802d9a, and e55bcdd0bf34a8b10d45ce80ebb3164c5292a17d, available via git.kernel.org/stable.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2022-54478
Vulnerability details
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mt76: fix use-after-free by removing a non-RCU wcid pointer Fixes an issue caught by KASAN about use-after-free in mt76_txq_schedule by protecting mtxq->wcid with rcu_lock between mt76_txq_schedule and sta_info_[alloc, free]. [18853.876689]…
more
================================================================== [18853.876751] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in mt76_txq_schedule+0x204/0xaf8 [mt76] [18853.876773] Read of size 8 at addr ffffffaf989a2138 by task mt76-tx phy0/883 [18853.876786] [18853.876810] CPU: 5 PID: 883 Comm: mt76-tx phy0 Not tainted 5.10.100-fix-510-56778d365941-kasan #5 0b01fbbcf41a530f52043508fec2e31a4215 [18853.876840] Call trace: [18853.876861] dump_backtrace+0x0/0x3ec [18853.876878] show_stack+0x20/0x2c [18853.876899] dump_stack+0x11c/0x1ac [18853.876918] print_address_description+0x74/0x514 [18853.876934] kasan_report+0x134/0x174 [18853.876948] __asan_report_load8_noabort+0x44/0x50 [18853.876976] mt76_txq_schedule+0x204/0xaf8 [mt76 074e03e4640e97fe7405ee1fab547b81c4fa45d2] [18853.877002] mt76_txq_schedule_all+0x2c/0x48 [mt76 074e03e4640e97fe7405ee1fab547b81c4fa45d2] [18853.877030] mt7921_tx_worker+0xa0/0x1cc [mt7921_common f0875ebac9d7b4754e1010549e7db50fbd90a047] [18853.877054] __mt76_worker_fn+0x190/0x22c [mt76 074e03e4640e97fe7405ee1fab547b81c4fa45d2] [18853.877071] kthread+0x2f8/0x3b8 [18853.877087] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x30 [18853.877098] [18853.877112] Allocated by task 941: [18853.877131] kasan_save_stack+0x38/0x68 [18853.877147] __kasan_kmalloc+0xd4/0xfc [18853.877163] kasan_kmalloc+0x10/0x1c [18853.877177] __kmalloc+0x264/0x3c4 [18853.877294] sta_info_alloc+0x460/0xf88 [mac80211] [18853.877410] ieee80211_prep_connection+0x204/0x1ee0 [mac80211] [18853.877523] ieee80211_mgd_auth+0x6c4/0xa4c [mac80211] [18853.877635] ieee80211_auth+0x20/0x2c [mac80211] [18853.877733] rdev_auth+0x7c/0x438 [cfg80211] [18853.877826] cfg80211_mlme_auth+0x26c/0x390 [cfg80211] [18853.877919] nl80211_authenticate+0x6d4/0x904 [cfg80211] [18853.877938] genl_rcv_msg+0x748/0x93c [18853.877954] netlink_rcv_skb+0x160/0x2a8 [18853.877969] genl_rcv+0x3c/0x54 [18853.877985] netlink_unicast_kernel+0x104/0x1ec [18853.877999] netlink_unicast+0x178/0x268 [18853.878015] netlink_sendmsg+0x3cc/0x5f0 [18853.878030] sock_sendmsg+0xb4/0xd8 [18853.878043] ____sys_sendmsg+0x2f8/0x53c [18853.878058] ___sys_sendmsg+0xe8/0x150 [18853.878071] __sys_sendmsg+0xc4/0x1f4 [18853.878087] __arm64_compat_sys_sendmsg+0x88/0x9c [18853.878101] el0_svc_common+0x1b4/0x390 [18853.878115] do_el0_svc_compat+0x8c/0xdc [18853.878131] el0_svc_compat+0x10/0x1c [18853.878146] el0_sync_compat_handler+0xa8/0xcc [18853.878161] el0_sync_compat+0x188/0x1c0 [18853.878171] [18853.878183] Freed by task 10927: [18853.878200] kasan_save_stack+0x38/0x68 [18853.878215] kasan_set_track+0x28/0x3c [18853.878228] kasan_set_free_info+0x24/0x48 [18853.878244] __kasan_slab_free+0x11c/0x154 [18853.878259] kasan_slab_free+0x14/0x24 [18853.878273] slab_free_freelist_hook+0xac/0x1b0 [18853.878287] kfree+0x104/0x390 [18853.878402] sta_info_free+0x198/0x210 [mac80211] [18853.878515] __sta_info_destroy_part2+0x230/0x2d4 [mac80211] [18853.878628] __sta_info_flush+0x300/0x37c [mac80211] [18853.878740] ieee80211_set_disassoc+0x2cc/0xa7c [mac80211] [18853.878851] ieee80211_mgd_deauth+0x4a4/0x10a0 [mac80211] [18853.878962] ieee80211_deauth+0x20/0x2c [mac80211] [18853.879057] rdev_deauth+0x7c/0x438 [cfg80211] [18853.879150] cfg80211_mlme_deauth+0x274/0x414 [cfg80211] [18853.879243] cfg80211_mlme_down+0xe4/0x118 [cfg80211] [18853.879335] cfg80211_disconnect+0x218/0x2d8 [cfg80211] [18853.879427] __cfg80211_leave+0x17c/0x240 [cfg80211] [18853.879519] cfg80211_leave+0x3c/0x58 [cfg80211] [18853.879611] wiphy_suspend+0xdc/0x200 [cfg80211] [18853.879628] dpm_run_callback+0x58/0x408 [18853.879642] __device_suspend+0x4cc/0x864 [18853.879658] async_suspend+0x34/0xf4 [18 ---truncated---
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local kernel UAF in mt76 driver directly enables privilege escalation from low-priv user context to full system compromise via driver memory corruption during WiFi operations.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly remediates the use-after-free vulnerability by applying stable kernel patches that protect the mtxq->wcid pointer with RCU locks.
Kernel memory protection mechanisms such as KASLR, SMEP, and supervisor mode execution prevention mitigate exploitation of the use-after-free in the mt76 driver.
Vulnerability scanning identifies the CVE-2022-49328 in affected kernel versions using mt76 drivers, enabling timely patching.