wifi: rtlwifi: Drastically reduce the attempts to read efuse in case of failures

{
  "id": "2c42b8d0a4fa110032b8dbaa39af1c0b66eceac49df4655eaf816bbe4911dbc7",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-53190",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "wifi: rtlwifi: Drastically reduce the attempts to read efuse in case of failures",
    "summary": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rtlwifi: Drastically reduce the attempts to read efuse in case of failures Syzkaller reported a hung task with uevent_show() on stack trace. That specific issue was addressed by another commit [0], but even with that fix applied (for example, running v6.12-rc5) we face another type of hung task that comes from the same reproducer [1]. By investigating that, we could narrow it to the following path: (a) Syzkaller emulates a Realtek USB WiFi adapter using raw-gadget and dummy_hcd infrastructure. (b) During the probe of rtl8192cu, the driver ends-up performing an efuse read procedure (which is related to EEPROM load IIUC), and here lies the issue: the function read_efuse() calls read_efuse_byte() many times, as loop iterations depending on the efuse size (in our example, 512 in total). This procedure for reading efuse bytes relies in a loop that performs an I/O read up to *10k* times in case of failures. We measured the time of the loop inside read_efuse_byte() alone, and in this reproducer (which involves the dummy_hcd emulation layer), it takes 15 seconds each. As a consequence, we have the driver stuck in its probe routine for big time, exposing a stack trace like below if we attempt to reboot the system, for example: task:kworker/0:3 state:D stack:0 pid:662 tgid:662 ppid:2 flags:0x00004000 Workqueue: usb_hub_wq hub_event Call Trace: __schedule+0xe22/0xeb6 schedule_timeout+0xe7/0x132 __wait_for_common+0",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2024-53190",
    "products": [
      {
        "name": {
          "value": "Kernel",
          "evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
        },
        "prerequisites": [],
        "fixed_versions": [
          {
            "value": "6.1.120",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          },
          {
            "value": "6.6.64",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          },
          {
            "value": "6.11.11",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          },
          {
            "value": "6.12.2",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          }
        ],
        "affected_versions": []
      }
    ],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2024-53190",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2024-53190"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
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                  "introduced": "0c8173385e549f95cd80c3fff5aab87b4f881d8d"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "c386fb76f01794f1023d01a6ec5f5c93d00acd3b"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "8f3551f67991652c83469c7dd51d7b9b187b265f"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "eeb0b9b9e66b0b54cdad8e1c1cf0f55e8ba4211c"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "ac064c656f105b9122bc43991a170f95f72b7a43"
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                {
                  "fixed": "5c1b544563005a00591a3aa86ecff62ed4d11be3"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2024-53190.json"
          }
        },
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "2.6.38"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "6.1.120"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "6.2.0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "6.6.64"
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              ]
            },
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "6.7.0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "6.11.11"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "6.12.0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "6.12.2"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "package": {
            "name": "Kernel",
            "ecosystem": "Linux"
          },
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2024-53190.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:41.987825334Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5c1b544563005a00591a3aa86ecff62ed4d11be3",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8f3551f67991652c83469c7dd51d7b9b187b265f",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac064c656f105b9122bc43991a170f95f72b7a43",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c386fb76f01794f1023d01a6ec5f5c93d00acd3b",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eeb0b9b9e66b0b54cdad8e1c1cf0f55e8ba4211c",
        "https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/03/msg00001.html",
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2024/53xxx/CVE-2024-53190.json",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-53190",
        "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cna_assigner": "Linux",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2024/53xxx/CVE-2024-53190.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2024-53190",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 509290,
  "published_at": "2024-12-27T13:49:32.691+00:00"
}