FAILED: patch "[PATCH] wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast" failed to apply to 5.10-stable tree

The patch below does not apply to the 5.10-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit id to <[email protected]>.

To reproduce the conflict and resubmit, you may use the following commands:

git fetch https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/ linux-5.10.y
git checkout FETCH_HEAD
git cherry-pick -x 193d18f60588e95d62e0f82b6a53893e5f2f19f8
# <resolve conflicts, build, test, etc.>
git commit -s
git send-email --to '<[email protected]>' --in-reply-to '2026010524-editor-spinner-7ecb@gregkh' --subject-prefix 'PATCH 5.10.y' HEAD^..

Possible dependencies:

thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From 193d18f60588e95d62e0f82b6a53893e5f2f19f8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jouni Malinen <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:11:34 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast
address

Beacon frames are required to be sent to the broadcast address, see IEEE Std 802.11-2020, 11.1.3.1 ("The Address 1 field of the Beacon .. frame shall be set to the broadcast address"). A unicast Beacon frame might be used as a targeted attack to get one of the associated STAs to do something (e.g., using CSA to move it to another channel). As such, it is better have strict filtering for this on the received side and discard all Beacon frames that are sent to an unexpected address.

This is even more important for cases where beacon protection is used. The current implementation in mac80211 is correctly discarding unicast Beacon frames if the Protected Frame bit in the Frame Control field is set to 0. However, if that bit is set to 1, the logic used for checking for configured BIGTK(s) does not actually work. If the driver does not have logic for dropping unicast Beacon frames with Protected Frame bit 1, these frames would be accepted in mac80211 processing as valid Beacon frames even though they are not protected. This would allow beacon protection to be bypassed. While the logic for checking beacon protection could be extended to cover this corner case, a more generic check for discard all Beacon frames based on A1=unicast address covers this without needing additional changes.

Address all these issues by dropping received Beacon frames if they are sent to a non-broadcast address.

index 6a1899512d07..e0ccd9749853 100644
@@ -3511,6 +3511,11 @@ ieee80211_rx_h_mgmt_check(struct ieee80211_rx_data *rx)
 	    rx->skb->len < IEEE80211_MIN_ACTION_SIZE)
 		return RX_DROP_U_RUNT_ACTION;
 
+	/* Drop non-broadcast Beacon frames */
+	if (ieee80211_is_beacon(mgmt->frame_control) &&
+	    !is_broadcast_ether_addr(mgmt->da))
+		return RX_DROP;
+
 	if (rx->sdata->vif.type == NL80211_IFTYPE_AP &&
 	    ieee80211_is_beacon(mgmt->frame_control) &&
 	    !(rx->flags & IEEE80211_RX_BEACON_REPORTED)) {

From: Jouni Malinen <[email protected]>

[ Upstream commit 193d18f60588e95d62e0f82b6a53893e5f2f19f8 ]

Beacon frames are required to be sent to the broadcast address, see IEEE Std 802.11-2020, 11.1.3.1 ("The Address 1 field of the Beacon .. frame shall be set to the broadcast address"). A unicast Beacon frame might be used as a targeted attack to get one of the associated STAs to do something (e.g., using CSA to move it to another channel). As such, it is better have strict filtering for this on the received side and discard all Beacon frames that are sent to an unexpected address.

This is even more important for cases where beacon protection is used. The current implementation in mac80211 is correctly discarding unicast Beacon frames if the Protected Frame bit in the Frame Control field is set to 0. However, if that bit is set to 1, the logic used for checking for configured BIGTK(s) does not actually work. If the driver does not have logic for dropping unicast Beacon frames with Protected Frame bit 1, these frames would be accepted in mac80211 processing as valid Beacon frames even though they are not protected. This would allow beacon protection to be bypassed. While the logic for checking beacon protection could be extended to cover this corner case, a more generic check for discard all Beacon frames based on A1=unicast address covers this without needing additional changes.

Address all these issues by dropping received Beacon frames if they are sent to a non-broadcast address.

---
 net/mac80211/rx.c | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

index 98f06563d184..8f497fe234ed 100644
@@ -3189,6 +3189,11 @@ ieee80211_rx_h_mgmt_check(struct ieee80211_rx_data *rx)
 	if (!ieee80211_is_mgmt(mgmt->frame_control))
 		return RX_DROP_MONITOR;
 
+	/* Drop non-broadcast Beacon frames */
+	if (ieee80211_is_beacon(mgmt->frame_control) &&
+	    !is_broadcast_ether_addr(mgmt->da))
+		return RX_DROP_MONITOR;
+
 	if (rx->sdata->vif.type == NL80211_IFTYPE_AP &&
 	    ieee80211_is_beacon(mgmt->frame_control) &&
 	    !(rx->flags & IEEE80211_RX_BEACON_REPORTED)) {

2.51.0