Look up another CVE · open CVE-2026-97474 in the interactive tracker
CVE-2026-97474
wifi: iwlwifi: mld: purge async notifications upon nic error
Published 2026-09-24 (24 days ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem drivers/net. Debian urgency: unimportant.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-97474 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | not affected | 6.1.190-1 | Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 13trixie | not affected | 6.12.113-1 | Nothing to do. trixie never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
This fixes a kernel panic in reconfig failure: 1. we have a BSS connection 2. we have a NAN connection 3. FW error occurs 4. reconfig restores the BSS connection 5. however, restoring the NAN connection fails due to a FW error. 6. erroneously, ieee80211_handle_reconfig_failure is called and marks all interfaces as not-in-driver (will be fixed in a different patch). 7. mac80211 frees the links of the BSS connection but doesn't tell the driver about that, as it thinks that this vif is not in the driver. 8. in ieee80211_stop_device, *ALL* wiphy works are getting flushed (erroneously?) 9. Therefore, async_handlers_wk is being executed, processing the statistics notification that was received after we restored the BSS connection. 10. the notification handler dereferences fw_id_to_bss_conf[id], which is now a dangling pointer, as mac80211 already freed this link in (7). 11. On the first access to one of the links fields, we panic. While this can and should be fixed by removing the call to ieee80211_handle_reconfig_failure in (6), it is also not a good idea to carry and maybe handle notifications from a dead FW. We do purge the notifications when we stop the FW, but in reconfig failure we stop the FW too late, after the notifications are processed. In addition, async_handlers_wk can always be scheduled before the reconfig work. Purge the notifications immediately when transport notifies about a nic error.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/mld/mld.c
- What this is
- INTEL WIRELESS WIFI LINK (iwlwifi)MAINTAINERS section matched on drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/ · linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org · Supported
Check it on the machine
grep -wE 'CONFIG_IWLMEI|CONFIG_IWLMLD|CONFIG_IWLWIFI|CONFIG_WLAN|CONFIG_WLAN_VENDOR_INTEL' /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian does not build this code in 2 releases. The build rule could not be established for 2 releases, so nothing is claimed about those.
- bookworm, trixie?
- forky, sidn
- ?
- not established - no Makefile entry for the affected file
- n
- not enabled on any flavour - this release does not build the code
Where a release above reads "not established", no build rule for the affected file was found in that release's kernel tree. That is a gap in this lookup, not a finding that the code is absent.
- Build switches
- CONFIG_IWLMEI, CONFIG_IWLMLD, CONFIG_IWLWIFI, CONFIG_WLAN, CONFIG_WLAN_VENDOR_INTEL
- Reads as
- all on means the file is compiled; any one off means it is not.
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-09-24 (24 days ago)source
- CVSS
- 7.4 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hsource recompute it - Attack vector
- local (AV:L)source
- EPSS
- 0.12%, higher than 1.7% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- unimportantsource
- Subsystem
- drivers/net
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.15 | 6.18.53 | 1b3b7b521041 |
| 6.15 | 7.2 | a40ad60a47f7 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
Quoted from the kernel CNA's own scoring file, word for word. A highlighted metric carries the most severe value CVSS v3.1 defines for it, which is what pushes the score up. source
- AV:LAttack vector, local
- iwl_mld_nic_error is reached from iwl_pcie_irq_handle_error via iwl_trans_fw_error(IWL_ERR_TYPE_IRQ) on the firmware SW_ERR/FH_ERR interrupt, not from iwl_mld_rx_mpdu parsing an 802.11 frame. The leftover STATISTICS_OPER_NOTIF that iwl_mld_rx_notif queued is firmware-generated stats; the dangling object is mac80211 ieee80211_bss_conf, which does not transit the air interface.
- AC:HAttack complexity, high
- The UAF needs a firmware death so ieee80211_restart_hw runs, then ieee80211_reconfig_nan failing so ieee80211_handle_reconfig_failure clears IEEE80211_SDATA_IN_DRIVER while BSS links remain in fw_id_to_bss_conf. That second failure is another device IRQ or dead-FW error during recovery; the attacker cannot raise those interrupts on demand.
- PR:NPrivileges required, none
- iwl_mld_nic_error runs from the PCIe ISR through iwl_op_mode_nic_error with no capable() check. On a host that already has a BSS STA and a NAN vif, the firmware SW_ERR path fires with no Linux uid, user namespace, or attacker-issued NL80211_CMD_START_NAN.
- UI:NUser interaction, none
- Once BSS and NAN are already up, iwl_pcie_irq_handle_error and the later wiphy_work_flush of async_handlers_wk inside ieee80211_stop_device run from driver restart work; no victim mount, click, or further nl80211 command is required.
- S:UScope, unchanged
- iwl_mld_process_per_link_stats loading the stale fw_id_to_bss_conf pointer oopses this kernel. It does not cross a VM, IOMMU, or sandbox boundary.
- C:HConfidentiality impact, high
- After ieee80211_vif_set_links(sdata, 0, 0) kfree's the removed link_container, iwl_mld_handle_stats_oper_notif → iwl_mld_process_per_link_stats still reads bss_conf->vif via iwl_mld_fw_id_to_link_conf. That use-after-free of the kmalloc'd ieee80211_bss_conf is an arbitrary kernel read.
- I:HIntegrity impact, high
- The same dangling bss_conf is passed to iwl_mld_update_link_sig, which writes link->last_cqm_rssi_event via iwl_mld_link_from_mac80211. Reusing the freed link_container therefore yields a kernel write primitive.
- A:HAvailability impact, high
- The first load through fw_id_to_bss_conf[id] in iwl_mld_process_per_link_stats after mac80211 freed the BSS link is a kernel oops, matching the panic described in the fix.