Null pointer dereference in Linux mac80211 when leaving a mesh
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
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Fixed
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
The Linux kernel mac80211 wireless stack from 3.13 is affected. When a device leaves a mesh network, a channel switch that is still pending is not aborted, so after the channel context is released the finalize step dereferences a null pointer and the kernel crashes.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
Description from the CNA
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: abort chanswitch when leaving a mesh The code in ieee80211_stop_mesh() leaves CSA active, but leaving the mesh released the channel context, so the CSA finalize work crashes: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000003 KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000018-0x000000000000001f] RIP: 0010:ieee80211_put_srates_elem+0x42/0x640 net/mac80211/util.c:3272 Call Trace: ieee80211_mesh_build_beacon+0xa83/0x1b50 net/mac80211/mesh.c:1093 ieee80211_mesh_rebuild_beacon+0xc7/0x170 net/mac80211/mesh.c:1147 ieee80211_mesh_finish_csa+0x131/0x210 net/mac80211/mesh.c:1542 ieee80211_set_after_csa_beacon net/mac80211/cfg.c:4085 [inline] __ieee80211_csa_finalize net/mac80211/cfg.c:4133 [inline] ieee80211_csa_finalize+0x633/0x1150 net/mac80211/cfg.c:4155 cfg80211_wiphy_work+0x2ab/0x450 net/wireless/core.c:438 Abort the channel switch properly.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
The Linux kernel is fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8 and 7.3.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8, 7.3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
Not affected: 7 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5
Timeline
- 2026-10-06 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-98335
- 2026-10-06 Alias added: GHSA-wmxc-8xr9-g2qr
- 2026-10-11 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-10-11 CVSS score added · Red Hat
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
More Linux vulnerabilities
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- 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
Sources
- CVE-2026-98335 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-98335 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-wmxc-8xr9-g2qr · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-98335 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences