CVE-2025-38488
Published: Jul 28, 2025
Modified: May 23, 2026
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto The CVE-2024-50047 fix removed asynchronous crypto handling from crypt_message(), assuming all crypto operations are synchronous. However, when hardware crypto accelerators are used, this can cause use-after-free crashes: crypt_message() // Allocate the creq buffer containing the req creq = smb2_get_aead_req(..., &req); // Async encryption returns -EINPROGRESS immediately rc = enc ? crypto_aead_encrypt(req) : crypto_aead_decrypt(req); // Free creq while async operation is still in progress kvfree_sensitive(creq, ...); Hardware crypto modules often implement async AEAD operations for performance. When crypto_aead_encrypt/decrypt() returns -EINPROGRESS, the operation completes asynchronously. Without crypto_wait_req(), the function immediately frees the request buffer, leading to crashes when the driver later accesses the freed memory. This results in a use-after-free condition when the hardware crypto driver later accesses the freed request structure, leading to kernel crashes with NULL pointer dereferences. The issue occurs because crypto_alloc_aead() with mask=0 doesn't guarantee synchronous operation. Even without CRYPTO_ALG_ASYNC in the mask, async implementations can be selected. Fix by restoring the async crypto handling: - DECLARE_CRYPTO_WAIT(wait) for completion tracking - aead_request_set_callback() for async completion notification - crypto_wait_req() to wait for operation completion This ensures the request buffer isn't freed until the crypto operation completes, whether synchronous or asynchronous, while preserving the CVE-2024-50047 fix.
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
Linux | Linux | affected 8f14a476abba13144df5434871a7225fd29af633 - < 5d047b12f86cc3b9fde1171c02d9bccf4dba0632affected ef51c0d544b1518b35364480317ab6d3468f205d - < 6550b2bef095d0dd2d2c8390d2ea4c3837028833affected bce966530fd5542bbb422cb45ecb775f7a1a6bc3 - < 9a1d3e8d40f151c2d5a5f40c410e6e433f62f438affected 0809fb86ad13b29e1d6d491364fc7ea4fb545995 - < 15a0a5de49507062bc3be4014a403d8cea5533deaffected b0abcd65ec545701b8793e12bc27dc98042b151a - < 2a76bc2b24ed889a689fb1c9015307bf16aafb5b+8 more versions |
Linux | Linux | affected 6.12unaffected 0 - < 6.12unaffected 5.10.241 - <= 5.10.*unaffected 5.15.190 - <= 5.15.*unaffected 6.1.147 - <= 6.1.*+4 more versions |
References
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