CVE-2026-23444

HIGH

wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() has three error paths, but only two of them free the skb. The first error path (ieee80211_tx_prepare() returning TX_DROP) does not free it, while invoke_tx_handlers() failure and the fragmentation check both do. Add kfree_skb() to the first error path so all three are consistent, and remove the now-redundant frees in callers (ath9k, mt76, mac80211_hwsim) to avoid double-free. Document the skb ownership guarantee in the function's kdoc.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0013
EPSS Percentile 3.0%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-401
Status published
Products (29)
linux/Kernel 3.13.0 - 5.10.258linux
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.209linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.175linux
linux/Kernel 6.13.0 - 6.18.20linux
linux/Kernel 6.19.0 - 6.19.10linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.136linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.84linux
Linux/Linux < 3.13
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - 06e769dddcbeb3baf2ce346273b53dd61fdbecf4
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - 3b4d27acafaeab478fd24f79ad6e593a892828b9
... and 19 more
Published Apr 03, 2026
Tracked Since Apr 03, 2026