CVE-2026-98338: wifi: cfg80211: ibss: ref BSS entry for joined event

Severity: unknown
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-10-06 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: ibss: ref BSS entry for joined event When the IBSS is joined, we only record the BSSID/channel in the event and look up the BSS entry when processing it. However, that's racy, e.g. a new scan with NL80211_SCAN_FLAG_FLUSH can remove it, causing a warning in the event work: !bss WARNING: net/wireless/ibss.c:37 at __cfg80211_ibss_joined+0x3d3/0x440 Workqueue: cfg80211 cfg80211_event_work cfg80211_process_wdev_events+0x39f/0x5b0 net/wireless/util.c:1144 cfg80211_process_rdev_events+0xa1/0x110 net/wireless/util.c:1179 cfg80211_event_work+0x2f/0x40 net/wireless/core.c:393 Do the lookup early (the driver is expected to only join an IBSS that has a BSS entry) and keep a reference to it.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 2.6.32 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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