Bug 2555243 (CVE-2026-98827)

Summary: CVE-2026-98827 kernel: wifi: ath9k_htc: bound TX aggregation to MAX_TX_BUF_SIZE
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: 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   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ath9k_htc wireless network driver. An attacker transmitting large network packets can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) or system crash through memory corruption. This issue occurs because the driver limits aggregated transmit packets only by count rather than cumulative data size, causing a buffer overflow when copying oversized network frames into a fixed-size buffer.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 16:04:14 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: ath9k_htc: bound TX aggregation to MAX_TX_BUF_SIZE

__hif_usb_tx() dequeues up to MAX_TX_AGGR_NUM (20) frames into a
single tx_buf of MAX_TX_BUF_SIZE (32768) bytes, limiting the batch
by record count but never by cumulative byte length.

With large frames (MTU 2304), 20 aggregated frames of 2292 bytes
each exceed the allocation (20 * 2296 = 45920 bytes), so the
memcpy() in the loop writes up to 13152 bytes past tx_buf->buf
before usb_submit_urb().

Peek the queue head and stop before copying any record that would
cross MAX_TX_BUF_SIZE, then dispatch the current batch. Leftover
skbs remain queued and are drained on the next URB completion.

The byte bound changes the loop's exit semantics: it can now exit
before i == tx_skb_cnt - 1. Stock only finalized tx_buf->len on
that last index (len += offset), so an early break would submit a
URB holding only the last record's length while every dequeued skb
is freed on completion, silently dropping frames. Make tx_buf->len
a running total and advance tx_buf->offset per record instead; the
stride round_up(nskb->len + 4, 4) is identical to the stock stride
when the loop runs to completion.

Tested on hardware with an MTU 2304 flood: the loop stops at
record 15 (len = 32144, offset = 32144, within 32768), no
oversized URB is submitted, and MTU 1500 pings pass 20/20.