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TI-2026-68198 Aliases CVE-2026-98307GHSA-79xr-q5vm-65jg

Linux ath11k memory leak of station statistics on firmware crash

Priority LOW 22Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
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Privileges required
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User interaction
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Attack complexity
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Impact type
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Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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Fix status
Partial Red Hat: 5 without a fix

No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.

Summary

The Linux kernel from 5.6 has a memory leak in the ath11k wireless driver. When the firmware crashes and the driver restarts the hardware, the per-station rx and tx statistics are never freed. The leaked memory is reported as unreferenced objects by kmemleak.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-07

Description from the CNA

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: ath11k: cleanup arsta in ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all() When mac80211 removes a sta, it calls .sta_state() which in turn calls ath11k_mac_station_remove(). In that function we clean up both peers & arsta related resources. But when the firmware crashes, ath11k calls ieee80211_restart_hw(), which assumes that all driver related resources are cleaned up beforehand. This cleanup is supposedly done by ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all() but does not in fact free arsta->rx_stats / tx_stats. Extract the arsta cleanup from ath11k_mac_station_remove() into a new ath11k_mac_station_cleanup() and call it from both there and ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all(). This should handle kmemleaks reports like: unreferenced object 0xffffff801ae66400 (size 1024): comm "hostapd", pid 1306, jiffies 4295011565 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace (crc d61c08ec): kmemleak_alloc+0x3c/0x50 __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x2b0/0x3e0 ath11k_mac_op_sta_state+0x1dc/0xb10 drv_sta_state+0xac/0x6f8 sta_info_insert_rcu+0x314/0x5e0 sta_info_insert+0x14/0x38 ieee80211_add_station+0x10c/0x1a0 nl80211_new_station+0x3e8/0x680 genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0xc0/0x120 genl_rcv_msg+0x1b4/0x258 netlink_rcv_skb+0x4c/0x108 genl_rcv+0x38/0x60 netlink_unicast+0x190/0x278 netlink_sendmsg+0x15c/0x370 ____sys_sendmsg+0x120/0x290 ___sys_sendmsg+0x70/0xa0 Tested-on: QCN9074 hw1.0 PCI WLAN.HK.2.9.0.1-01977-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1

Why it matters now

EPSS 0.00168 6th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Linux (Linux): 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8 +1Red Hat: 5 without a fix

SSVC decision points

Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux5.6 and later6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8, 7.3Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 5.6 and later Fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8, 7.3 Patch available CNA

CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1

Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*——Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·Linux

Remediation

The Linux kernel is fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8 and 7.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 9 and 10 and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 and 5 are affected with no fix available.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-07

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8, 7.3

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Low. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

ProductStatusPlan or fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Not affected: 2 products
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-06 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-98307
  2. 2026-10-06 Alias added: GHSA-79xr-q5vm-65jg
  3. 2026-10-11 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
  4. 2026-10-11 CVSS score added · Red Hat
  5. 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
  6. 2026-11-07 Affected versions changed · Red Hat

References

  • TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2021-02452 Incorrect authorization in Ubuntu linux kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
See all 21741 →

Sources