CVE-2025-38488: 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…

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.

Affected

CVSS provenance