[PATCH v5 5/5] staging: rtl8723bs: fix negative length in WEP decryption

Delene Tchio Romuald
2026-04-17T03:03:08Z

In rtw_wep_decrypt(), the payload length is computed as:

length = frame->len - prxattrib->hdrlen - prxattrib->iv_len;

All operands are unsigned. If the frame is shorter than the sum of
the header length, IV length and the 4-byte ICV, this subtraction
wraps around or produces a value smaller than 4; the subsequent
crc32_le(~0, payload, length - 4) call then wraps length - 4 to a
huge value and reads past the end of the receive buffer.

An attacker within WiFi radio range can exploit this by sending a
crafted short WEP-encrypted frame. No authentication is required.

Validate that the frame is large enough to contain at least the
4-byte ICV on top of the header and IV before computing length.

Found by reviewing length arithmetic in the WEP decrypt path.
Not tested on hardware.

Fixes: 554c0a3abf216 ("staging: Add rtl8723bs sdio wifi driver")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Delene Tchio Romuald <delenetchior1@gmail.com>
---
v5: tighten the length check to also cover the 4-byte ICV so
that the subsequent crc32_le(payload, length - 4) call
cannot underflow length - 4.
v4: add Fixes: tag and Cc: stable (Dan Carpenter).
v3: rebased on staging-next; sent as numbered series with
proper Cc from get_maintainer.pl.
v2: rebased on staging-next (v1 was based on v7.0-rc6 and did
not apply).

drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_security.c | 6 ++++++
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_security.c b/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_security.c
index a00504ff29109..ddd6ed2245035 100644
--- a/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_security.c
+++ b/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_security.c
@@ -113,6 +113,12 @@ void rtw_wep_decrypt(struct adapter *padapter, u8 *precvframe)
memcpy(&wepkey[0], iv, 3);
/* memcpy(&wepkey[3], &psecuritypriv->dot11DefKey[psecuritypriv->dot11PrivacyKeyIndex].skey[0], keylength); */
memcpy(&wepkey[3], &psecuritypriv->dot11DefKey[keyindex].skey[0], keylength);
+
+ /* Ensure the frame is long enough for WEP payload and ICV */
+ if (((union recv_frame *)precvframe)->u.hdr.len <
+ prxattrib->hdrlen + prxattrib->iv_len + 4)
+ return;
+
length = ((union recv_frame *)precvframe)->u.hdr.len - prxattrib->hdrlen - prxattrib->iv_len;

payload = pframe + prxattrib->iv_len + prxattrib->hdrlen;
--
2.43.0