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Medium5.5Red Hat Linux

Medium [CVE-2026-74651] fix OOB read in rtw_get_wpa_ie

This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74651.

CVE-2026-74651 Published Aug 22, 2026Updated by vendor Aug 22, 2026
Affected products & platforms
Red Hat LinuxUnclassified
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Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: staging: rtl8723bs: fix OOB read in rtw_get_wpa_ie() rtw_get_wpa_ie() reads bytes at fixed offsets into a vendor-specific information element without checking that the element is long enough, causing an out-of-bounds read for a short trailing IE.

The function locates a vendor-specific IE (EID 221) with rtw_get_ie() and then compares a 4-byte OUI+type at pbuf + 2 and reads a 2-byte version word at pbuf + 6. Those accesses require the IE body to be at least 6 bytes, but rtw_get_ie() only guarantees that the element fits within the buffer; it does not enforce a minimum body length.

A vendor-specific IE whose length byte is 0 to 5, placed at the end of the buffer, therefore makes these reads run past the end of the IE and past the end of the buffer itself.

The buffer holds information elements taken from received management frames and from the IE blob passed to rtw_cfg80211_set_wpa_ie(), which is kmemdup'd to its exact length, so the read can run off the end of the allocation.

The sibling helpers rtw_get_sec_ie(), rtw_get_wapi_ie() and rtw_get_wps_ie() in this file already reject too-short vendor-specific IEs before their OUI memcmp(); rtw_get_wpa_ie() was never brought in line with them, and needs a minimum of 6 rather than 4 bytes because of the version word. Add the missing length check.

Affected versions

No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source

Fixed versions

No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source

Mitigation

The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source

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