CVE-2025-38488

HIGH

Linux Kernel - Use-After-Free in SMB Client Cryptographic Message Handling

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

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.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0004
EPSS Percentile 12.1%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-416
Status published
Products (31)
debian/debian_linux 11.0
linux/Kernel < 5.10.241linux
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.190linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.147linux
linux/Kernel 6.12.0 - 6.15.8linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.100linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.40linux
Linux/Linux < 6.12
Linux/Linux 0809fb86ad13b29e1d6d491364fc7ea4fb545995 - 15a0a5de49507062bc3be4014a403d8cea5533de
Linux/Linux 5.10.237 - 5.10.241
... and 21 more
Published Jul 28, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026