Bug 2502596 (CVE-2026-64175)

Summary: CVE-2026-64175 kernel: wifi: iwlwifi: mld: stop TX during firmware restart
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's iwlwifi driver. When the Wi-Fi firmware crashes, the driver continues to process network transmission requests inefficiently. This creates a continuous loop of attempting to send data through an unresponsive firmware, consuming excessive CPU resources and memory. This can lead to resource exhaustion and a denial of service (DoS) for the system.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-07-19 17:08:06 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: iwlwifi: mld: stop TX during firmware restart

When iwlwifi firmware crashes (e.g., NMI_INTERRUPT_UNKNOWN on Intel
BE201/Wi-Fi 7), iwl_mld_nic_error() sets mld->fw_status.in_hw_restart
to true. However, iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() does not check this flag before
dequeuing frames from mac80211 and pushing them to the transport layer.

Since the firmware is dead, iwl_trans_tx() returns -EIO for each frame,
which then gets freed immediately. Under high-throughput conditions
(e.g., Tailscale UDP traffic or active SSH sessions), this creates a
tight dequeue-send-fail-free loop that wastes CPU cycles and generates
rapid skb allocation churn, leading to memory pressure from slab
fragmentation.

The RX path already has this guard (iwl_mld_rx_mpdu checks
in_hw_restart at rx.c:1906), and so does the TXQ allocation worker
(iwl_mld_add_txqs_wk at tx.c:156). Add the same guard to
iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() to stop all TX during firmware restart.

Frames left in mac80211's TXQs are naturally drained after restart
completes, when queue reallocation triggers iwl_mld_tx_from_txq()
via iwl_mld_add_txq_list(), or when new upper-layer traffic invokes
wake_tx_queue.

Tested on ASUS Zenbook 14 UX3405CA with Intel BE201 (Wi-Fi 7) on
kernel 6.19.5 where the firmware crashes approximately every 10-15
minutes under Tailscale traffic.

Comment 5 Jon Orris 2026-09-17 05:45:15 UTC
This issue has been addressed in the following products:

  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10

Via RHSA-2026:68507 https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:68507

Comment 6 Jon Orris 2026-09-17 12:16:21 UTC
This issue has been addressed in the following products:

  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Via RHSA-2026:68570 https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:68570