CVE-2025-38488

smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto

State
Published
Severity
9.8 Critical
Published
Jul 28, 2025
Updated
Aug 5, 2026
Reserved
Apr 16, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

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

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.19.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HLinux

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 8f14a476abba13144df5434871a7225fd29af633 to before 5d047b12f86cc3b9fde1171c02d9bccf4dba0632Affected
  • ef51c0d544b1518b35364480317ab6d3468f205d to before 6550b2bef095d0dd2d2c8390d2ea4c3837028833Affected
  • bce966530fd5542bbb422cb45ecb775f7a1a6bc3 to before 9a1d3e8d40f151c2d5a5f40c410e6e433f62f438Affected
  • 0809fb86ad13b29e1d6d491364fc7ea4fb545995 to before 15a0a5de49507062bc3be4014a403d8cea5533deAffected
  • b0abcd65ec545701b8793e12bc27dc98042b151a to before 2a76bc2b24ed889a689fb1c9015307bf16aafb5bAffected
  • b0abcd65ec545701b8793e12bc27dc98042b151a to before 8ac90f6824fc44d2e55a82503ddfc95defb19ae0Affected
  • b0abcd65ec545701b8793e12bc27dc98042b151a to before b220bed63330c0e1733dc06ea8e75d5b9962b6b6Affected
  • 538c26d9bf70c90edc460d18c81008a4e555925aAffected
  • 5.10.237 to before 5.10.241Affected
  • 5.15.181 to before 5.15.190Affected
  • 6.1.128 to before 6.1.147Affected
  • 6.6.57 to before 6.6.100Affected
  • 6.11.4 to before 6.12Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.12Affected
  • before 6.12Not affected
  • 5.10.241 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.190 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.147 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.100 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.40 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.15.8 through 6.15.*Not affected
  • 6.16 and laterNot affected

References

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