CVE-2026-68363 — wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: don't dereference hif_dev after re-arming firmware request

Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: don't dereference hif_dev after re-arming firmware request

ath9k_hif_request_firmware() re-arms an asynchronous firmware load via request_firmware_nowait(), passing hif_dev as the completion context, and then still dereferences hif_dev:

dev_info(&hif_dev->udev->dev, "ath9k_htc: Firmware %s requested\n", hif_dev->fw_name);

The re-armed callback ath9k_hif_usb_firmware_cb() runs on the "events" workqueue and, when the firmware is missing, walks the retry chain into ath9k_hif_usb_firmware_fail() -> complete_all(&hif_dev->fw_done). That releases the wait_for_completion(&hif_dev->fw_done) in a concurrent ath9k_hif_usb_disconnect(), which then kfree()s hif_dev. The trailing dev_info() in the frame that re-armed the request can therefore read freed memory (hif_dev->udev, the first field of struct hif_device_usb):

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in ath9k_hif_request_firmware Read of size 8 ... by task kworker/... ath9k_hif_request_firmware ath9k_hif_usb_firmware_cb drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/hif_usb.c:1247 request_firmware_work_func Allocated by ...: ath9k_hif_usb_probe drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/hif_usb.c Freed by ...: ath9k_hif_usb_disconnect -> kfree drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/hif_usb.c

The fw_done barrier only makes disconnect wait for the firmware chain to *terminate*; it does not protect the outer ath9k_hif_request_fi…

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CVE-2026-68363 — wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: don't dereference hif_dev after re-arming firmware request