What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-98823: wifi: cfg80211: preserve hidden-group beacon IE ownership

• 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: 2026-10-18 · updated 2026-10-30

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: preserve hidden-group beacon IE ownership A hidden-group probe-response entry borrows its beacon IEs from the group's beacon entry. cfg80211_update_assoc_bss_entry() can pass such an entry to cfg80211_update_known_bss() when merging scan entries after a channel switch. Copying the borrowed beacon_ies into the associated entry gives the same allocation two owners. Releasing the group's beacon entry can then leave the associated entry pointing to freed IEs, which are freed again when that entry is released. Skip beacon IE replacement when the source entry belongs to a hidden group. Preserve probe-response processing, the subsequent metadata updates, and the existing rejection path for conflicting hidden beacon updates.

Affected products

• Linux: 5.4 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

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

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/00f83d39675adc12d56957a1f5e316812157e4d3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c44f780d1738e9ddf438729f5ff6ceb45f9ded3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/49b66110a08e4f926f6393e938f226de2750a08b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5617d5328839003c91007ce906b4f100b43926e9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f27581c176f84b52ec0ab9be7b500c10667ef60
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8f79f429dc87a4f21e4fcf9a4d3df9484ca9a294
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cc45f313d85533d647ce619326302aad6f797c14
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dd7973a4130b0862be38d7e08cc0e874b3d99967

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