published October 7, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: cdc_ncm: Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize
Currently in cdc_ncm_check_tx_max(), if dwNtbOutMaxSize is lower than
the calculated "min" value, but greater than zero, the logic sets
tx_max to dwNtbOutMaxSize. This is then used to allocate a new SKB in
cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame() where all the data is handled.
For small values of dwNtbOutMaxSize the memory allocated during
alloc_skb(dwNtbOutMaxSize, GFP_ATOMIC) will have the same size, due to
how size is aligned at alloc time:
size = SKB_DATA_ALIGN(size);
size += SKB_DATA_ALIGN(sizeof(struct skb_shared_info));
Thus we hit the same bug that we tried to squash with
commit 2be6d4d16a084 ("net: cdc_ncm: Allow for dwNtbOutMaxSize to be unset or zero")
Low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize do not cause an issue presently because at
alloc_skb() time more memory (512b) is allocated than required for the
SKB headers alone (320b), leaving some space (512b - 320b = 192b)
for CDC data (172b).
However, if more elements (for example 3 x u64 = [24b]) were added to
one of the SKB header structs, say 'struct skb_shared_info',
increasing its original size (320b [320b aligned]) to something larger
(344b [384b aligned]), then suddenly the CDC data (172b) no longer
fits in the spare SKB data area (512b - 384b = 128b).
Consequently the SKB bounds checking semantics fails and panics:
skbuff: skb_over_panic: text:ffffffff831f755b len:184 put:172 head:ffff88811f1c6c00 data:ffff88811f1c6c00 tail:0xb8 end:0x80 dev:<NULL>
------------[ cut here ]------------
kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:113!
invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN
CPU: 0 PID: 57 Comm: kworker/0:2 Not tainted 5.15.106-syzkaller-00249-g19c0ed55a470 #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 04/14/2023
Workqueue: mld mld_ifc_work
RIP: 0010:skb_panic net/core/skbuff.c:113 [inline]
RIP: 0010:skb_over_panic+0x14c/0x150 net/core/skbuff.c:118
[snip]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
skb_put+0x151/0x210 net/core/skbuff.c:2047
skb_put_zero include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline]
cdc_ncm_ndp16 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1131 [inline]
cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame+0x11ab/0x3da0 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1308
cdc_ncm_tx_fixup+0xa3/0x100
Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize, clamp it in the range
[USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE, CDC_NCM_NTB_MAX_SIZE_TX]. We ensure
enough data space is allocated to handle CDC data by making sure
dwNtbOutMaxSize is not smaller than USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE.