EUVD-2026-18688Lifecycle Timeline
3Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() has three error paths, but only two of them free the skb. The first error path (ieee80211_tx_prepare() returning TX_DROP) does not free it, while invoke_tx_handlers() failure and the fragmentation check both do. Add kfree_skb() to the first error path so all three are consistent, and remove the now-redundant frees in callers (ath9k, mt76, mac80211_hwsim) to avoid double-free. Document the skb ownership guarantee in the function's kdoc.
Analysis
Memory leak in Linux kernel mac80211 subsystem's ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() function fails to free socket buffers (skb) in one of three error paths, allowing local denial of service through memory exhaustion. The vulnerability affects all Linux kernel versions with the vulnerable code path in wireless MAC 802.11 handling; no active exploitation has been reported, but the fix addresses a resource leak that could be triggered by applications exercising error conditions in Wi-Fi frame preparation.
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