Host compromise via transmit-status use-after-free race
Published Feb 26, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Use-after-free in the mt76 driver in Linux allows attackers to compromise the host via adjacent wireless access and station removal. During station removal, mt76_tx_status_skb_add can add an skb to a status IDR after cleanup and retain the freed wcid on the poll list. Reachability requires active mt76 Wi-Fi operation, concurrent transmit traffic, and station removal; exploitation permits kernel reads, writes, control-flow hijacking, or a panic.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the mt76 driver in Linux allows attackers to compromise the host via adjacent wireless access and station removal. During station removal, mt76_tx_status_skb_add can add an skb to a status IDR after cleanup and retain the freed wcid on the poll list. Reachability requires active mt76 Wi-Fi operation, concurrent transmit traffic, and station removal; exploitation permits kernel reads, writes, control-flow hijacking, or a panic.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-49479
- Published
- Feb 26, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- adjacent
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 26, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 5, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=5.16
- Affected versionversion=bd1e3e7b693c17a04e7d2bd9119daa482b7c7720 <ddd426d72aca4054045a9bd3b80a4ce1d398f11f
- Affected versionversion=bd1e3e7b693c17a04e7d2bd9119daa482b7c7720 <ef7f9f894cfd0b2e471206409a529af4a26ddd55
- Affected versionversion=bd1e3e7b693c17a04e7d2bd9119daa482b7c7720 <fcfe1b5e162bf473c1d47760962cec8523c00466
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo