Forwarded: [PATCH] ieee802154: nl-mac: validate device pointers before dereference

From: syzbot

Date: Sun Nov 01 2026 - 03:37:45 EST


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Subject: [PATCH] ieee802154: nl-mac: validate device pointers before dereference
Author: skalpesh942@xxxxxxxxx

#syz test: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git master

A virtual network device (such as a TUN interface) can have its link
type set to ARPHRD_IEEE802154 via ioctl(tun_fd, TUNSETLINK,
ARPHRD_IEEE802154). However, such devices do not have an IEEE 802.15.4
private context allocated (dev->ieee802154_ptr is NULL) and do not
register MAC operations (dev->ml_priv / ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev) is NULL).

When dumping security keys via IEEE802154_LLSEC_LIST_KEY,
ieee802154_llsec_dump_table() iterates through all net devices and
dereferences data.ops->llsec assuming that any ARPHRD_IEEE802154 device
has valid mlme ops. Because data.ops is NULL, this causes an immediate
null-pointer dereference / General Protection Fault:

Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000038-0x000000000000003f]
RIP: 0010:ieee802154_llsec_dump_table+0x204/0x5d0
Call Trace:
<TASK>
genl_dumpit+0x125/0x230 net/netlink/genetlink.c:1026
netlink_dump+0x53b/0xd00 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2351
__netlink_dump_start+0x6d6/0x990 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2466

Similarly, ieee802154_dump_iface() and ieee802154_nl_get_dev() assume
that ARPHRD_IEEE802154 devices have valid dev->ieee802154_ptr and
ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev) pointers.

Fix this by ensuring dev->ieee802154_ptr and ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev)
are non-NULL before proceeding in ieee802154_nl_get_dev(),
ieee802154_dump_iface(), and ieee802154_llsec_dump_table().

Fixes: 3e9c156e2c21 ("ieee802154: add netlink interfaces for llsec")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reported-by: syzbot+9ea34da5ca6100593c90@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Closes: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=9ea34da5ca6100593c90
Signed-off-by: Kalpesh Solanki <skalpesh942@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c | 9 ++++++---
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c b/net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c
index 74ef0a310af..1acde5af4b5 100644
--- a/net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c
+++ b/net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c
@@ -162,7 +162,8 @@ static struct net_device *ieee802154_nl_get_dev(struct genl_info *info)
if (!dev)
return NULL;

- if (dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154) {
+ if (dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154 || !dev->ieee802154_ptr ||
+ !ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev)) {
dev_put(dev);
return NULL;
}
@@ -437,7 +438,8 @@ int ieee802154_dump_iface(struct sk_buff *skb, struct netlink_callback *cb)

idx = 0;
for_each_netdev(net, dev) {
- if (idx < s_idx || dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154)
+ if (idx < s_idx || dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154 ||
+ !dev->ieee802154_ptr || !ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev))
goto cont;

if (ieee802154_nl_fill_iface(skb, NETLINK_CB(cb->skb).portid,
@@ -771,7 +773,8 @@ ieee802154_llsec_dump_table(struct sk_buff *skb, struct netlink_callback *cb,
int rc;

for_each_netdev(net, dev) {
- if (idx < first_dev || dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154)
+ if (idx < first_dev || dev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154 ||
+ !dev->ieee802154_ptr || !ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev))
goto skip;

data.ops = ieee802154_mlme_ops(dev);
--