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 0.0001
EPSS Percentile 2.4%
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 (16)
Linux/Linux < 3.13
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - 06e769dddcbeb3baf2ce346273b53dd61fdbecf4
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - 3b4d27acafaeab478fd24f79ad6e593a892828b9
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - 50f1b690b4868923fbd242298def2fb88662f108
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - d5ad6ab61cbd89afdb60881f6274f74328af3ee9
Linux/Linux 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced - f77b51bcee7be2bb686b5f7a2d4a1921e4bdb9f4
Linux/Linux 3.13
Linux/Linux 6.12.84 - 6.12.*
Linux/Linux 6.18.20 - 6.18.*
Linux/Linux 6.19.10 - 6.19.*
... and 6 more
Published Apr 03, 2026
Tracked Since Apr 03, 2026