CVE-2025-22023

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

usb: xhci: Dont skip on Stopped - Length Invalid

Up until commit d56b0b2ab142 (usb: xhci: ensure skipped isoc TDs are returned when isoc ring is stopped) in v6.11, the driver didnt skip missed isochronous TDs when handling Stoppend and Stopped - Length Invalid events. Instead, it erroneously cleared the skip flag, which would cause the ring to get stuck, as future events wont match the missed TD which is never removed from the queue until its cancelled.

This buggy logic seems to have been in place substantially unchanged since the 3.x series over 10 years ago, which probably speaks first and foremost about relative rarity of this case in normal usage, but by the spec I see no reason why it shouldnt be possible.

After d56b0b2ab142, TDs are immediately skipped when handling those Stopped events. This poses a potential problem in case of Stopped - Length Invalid, which occurs either on completed TDs (likely already given back) or Link and No-Op TRBs. Such event wont be recognized as matching any TD (unless its the rare Link TRB inside a TD) and will result in skipping all pending TDs, giving them back possibly before they are done, risking isoc data loss and maybe UAF by HW.

As a compromise, dont skip and dont clear the skip flag on this kind of event. Then the next event will skip missed TDs. A downside of not handling Stopped - Length Invalid on a Link inside a TD is that if the TD is cancelled, its actual length will not be updated to account for TRBs (silently) completed before the TD was stopped.

I had no luck producing this sequence of completion events so there is no compelling demonstration of any resulting disaster. It may be a very rare, obscure condition. The sole motivation for this patch is that if such unlikely event does occur, Id rather risk reporting a cancelled partially done isoc frame as empty than gamble with UAF.

This will be fixed more properly by looking at Stopped events TRB pointer when making skipping decisions, but such rework is unlikely to be backported to v6.12, which will stay around for a few years.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/49cf6f5293aeb706dd672608478336a003f37df6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/58d0a3fab5f4fdc112c16a4c6d382f62097afd1c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6af20ac254cbd0e1178a3542767c9308e209eee5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/de9e78167f760a699806793d7c987239e4f6c8c3