CVE-2025-39957 (GCVE-0-2025-39957)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-10-09 09:47 – Updated: 2026-08-05 12:06
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
wifi: mac80211: increase scan_ies_len for S1G
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: mac80211: increase scan_ies_len for S1G
Currently the S1G capability element is not taken into account
for the scan_ies_len, which leads to a buffer length validation
failure in ieee80211_prep_hw_scan() and subsequent WARN in
__ieee80211_start_scan(). This prevents hw scanning from functioning.
To fix ensure we accommodate for the S1G capability length.
Severity
7.1 (High)
Assigner
References
Impacted products
2 products
| Vendor | Product | Version | CPE status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux |
Affected:
0333a81bc83431d7f90391d38aa09e856c5e5b25 , < 93e063f15e17acb8cd6ac90c8f0802c2624e1a74
(git)
Affected: 0333a81bc83431d7f90391d38aa09e856c5e5b25 , < 32adb020b0c32939da1322dcc87fc0ae2bc935d1 (git) Affected: 0333a81bc83431d7f90391d38aa09e856c5e5b25 , < 0dbad5f5549e54ac269cc04ce89f212892a98cab (git) Affected: 0333a81bc83431d7f90391d38aa09e856c5e5b25 , < 7e2f3213e85eba00acb4cfe6d71647892d63c3a1 (git) |
guessed | |
| Linux | Linux |
Affected:
6.4
Unaffected: 0 , < 6.4 (semver) Unaffected: 6.6.108 , ≤ 6.6.* (semver) Unaffected: 6.12.49 , ≤ 6.12.* (semver) Unaffected: 6.16.9 , ≤ 6.16.* (semver) Unaffected: 6.17 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix) |
guessed |
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"value": "AV:L - The failure is reached by initiating a scan on the local host \u2014 `nl80211_trigger_scan` over netlink (or an internal mac80211/mlme scan) \u2014 not by processing any received frame. No remote or adjacent peer input is involved in triggering the undersized-buffer condition.\nAC:L - The miscalculation is deterministic: on any S1G-capable hardware doing a hardware scan, `ieee80211_build_preq_ies()` always overruns the `scan_ies_len` budget and fails, firing the WARN and passing an uninitialized request to the driver every single time. No race, timing, or memory-layout condition is required.\nPR:L - `NL80211_CMD_TRIGGER_SCAN` is gated by `GENL_UNS_ADMIN_PERM`, i.e. `ns_capable(net-\u003euser_ns, CAP_NET_ADMIN)`, which is the user-namespace-aware check and therefore reachable by a low-privileged local user rather than requiring real root; in practice scans are also driven continuously by wpa_supplicant/NetworkManager on behalf of ordinary desktop users.\nUI:N - No victim action is needed \u2014 a scan request alone triggers the path, and on affected hardware normal automatic scanning at boot or after connection loss hits it with no user involvement at all.\nS:U - The uninitialized-value use and the WARN both occur within the kernel\u0027s own security authority in net/mac80211 and the wireless driver; no VM, IOMMU, or sandbox boundary is crossed.\nC:H - Because `ieee80211_prep_hw_scan()` returns before assigning `req.ie_len`/`req.mac_addr`/`req.mac_addr_mask` yet `__ieee80211_start_scan()` still calls `drv_hw_scan()`, drivers copy `req-\u003eie_len` bytes (uninitialized kmalloc heap value, effectively unbounded) out of the IE buffer into a probe request that is transmitted over the air, disclosing arbitrary adjacent kernel heap memory.\nI:N - All IE emission is bounds-checked via `skb_tailroom()`/`end - pos` guards, so no out-of-bounds write or kernel data modification occurs; the uninitialized length yields only reads.\nA:H - `WARN_ON(!ieee80211_prep_hw_scan())` fires on every scan attempt, which is a kernel panic on the many hardened/embedded builds running `panic_on_warn`, and the subsequent unbounded read driven by the uninitialized `ie_len` can fault or trigger an enormous allocation; hardware scanning is rendered permanently non-functional."
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"title": "kernel: wifi: mac80211: increase scan_ies_len for S1G",
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Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
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Related by attack behaviour
Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.
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