CVE-2026-31552: wifi: wlcore: Return -ENOMEM instead of -EAGAIN if there is not enough headroom

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-04-24 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-835

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: wlcore: Return -ENOMEM instead of -EAGAIN if there is not enough headroom Since upstream commit e75665dd0968 ("wifi: wlcore: ensure skb headroom before skb_push"), wl1271_tx_allocate() and with it wl1271_prepare_tx_frame() returns -EAGAIN if pskb_expand_head() fails. However, in wlcore_tx_work_locked(), a return value of -EAGAIN from wl1271_prepare_tx_frame() is interpreted as the aggregation buffer being full. This causes the code to flush the buffer, put the skb back at the head of the queue, and immediately retry the same skb in a tight while loop. Because wlcore_tx_work_locked() holds wl->mutex, and the retry happens immediately with GFP_ATOMIC, this will result in an infinite loop and a CPU soft lockup. Return -ENOMEM instead so the packet is dropped and the loop terminates. The problem was found by an experimental code review agent based on gemini-3.1-pro while reviewing backports into v6.18.y.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.10.250 before 5.10.253; from 5.15.200 before 5.15.203; from 6.1.163 before 6.1.167; from 6.6.124 before 6.6.130; from 6.12.70 before 6.12.78; from 6.18.10 before 6.18.20 — fixed in 5.10.253, 5.15.203, 6.1.167, 6.12.78, 6.18.20, 6.19.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.253, 5.15.203, 6.1.167, 6.12.78. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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