Bug 2546375 (CVE-2026-98338)

Summary:	CVE-2026-98338 kernel: wifi: cfg80211: ibss: ref BSS entry for joined event
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	unspecified	CC:	akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:	A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's cfg80211 wireless subsystem. A race condition occurs during Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS, an ad-hoc wireless network) join event handling because the kernel does not hold an active reference to the service set entry before processing the event. A local user could trigger this issue by initiating a concurrent wireless scan that flushes the entry while the event is queued, potentially resulting in a system crash and Denial of Service (DoS).	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-06 09:08:47 UTC

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.

Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-10-10 11:21:59 UTC

Upstream advisory:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/security/vulns.git/plain/cve/published/2026/CVE-2026-98338.mbox