Re: [PATCH v2] staging: rtl8723bs: use kfree_sensitive() for key material in rtw_set_key()

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Aug 04, 2026 at 02:05:40PM -0600, Ivy Lopez wrote:
> psetkeyparm holds WEP/TKIP/AES key material copied in via memcpy
> from psecuritypriv before being freed. Use kfree_sensitive() instead
> of kfree() so the key bytes are zeroed before the memory is released,
> consistent with how psetstakey_para is already handled elsewhere in
> this driver.
> 
> Fixes: 554c0a3abf21 ("staging: Add rtl8723bs sdio wifi driver")
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ivy Lopez <skunkolee@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c | 6 +++---
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c b/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c
> index 1196ec011455..fb45f7295386 100644
> --- a/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c
> +++ b/drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c
> @@ -1926,14 +1926,14 @@ signed int rtw_set_key(struct adapter *adapter, struct security_priv *psecurityp
>  		break;
>  	default:
>  		res = _FAIL;
> -		kfree(psetkeyparm);
> +		kfree_sensitive(psetkeyparm);
>  		goto exit;
>  	}
>  
>  	if (enqueue) {
>  		pcmd = kzalloc_obj(*pcmd);
>  		if (!pcmd) {
> -			kfree(psetkeyparm);
> +			kfree_sensitive(psetkeyparm);
>  			res = _FAIL;  /* try again */
>  			goto exit;
>  		}
> @@ -1949,7 +1949,7 @@ signed int rtw_set_key(struct adapter *adapter, struct security_priv *psecurityp
>  		res = rtw_enqueue_cmd(pcmdpriv, pcmd);
>  	} else {
>  		setkey_hdl(adapter, (u8 *)psetkeyparm);
> -		kfree(psetkeyparm);
> +		kfree_sensitive(psetkeyparm);
>  	}
>  exit:
>  	return res;
> -- 
> 2.55.0
> 
> 

Hi,

This is the friendly patch-bot of Greg Kroah-Hartman.  You have sent him
a patch that has triggered this response.  He used to manually respond
to these common problems, but in order to save his sanity (he kept
writing the same thing over and over, yet to different people), I was
created.  Hopefully you will not take offence and will fix the problem
in your patch and resubmit it so that it can be accepted into the Linux
kernel tree.

You are receiving this message because of the following common error(s)
as indicated below:

- This looks like a new version of a previously submitted patch, but you
  did not list below the --- line any changes from the previous version.
  Please read the section entitled "The canonical patch format" in the
  kernel file, Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst for what
  needs to be done here to properly describe this.

If you wish to discuss this problem further, or you have questions about
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thanks,

greg k-h's patch email bot