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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-53258

| EUVDEUVD-2026-39209 MEDIUM
Memory Leak (CWE-401)
2026-06-25 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 GHSA-pw6x-273j-mp83
Information Disclosure Linux Red Hat Suse
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY
5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI
5.5 MEDIUM

Local trigger via low-privilege wpa_supplicant call; memory leak causes availability impact only, with no confidentiality or integrity consequence.

3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
MEDIUM
qualitative
Red Hat
5.5 LOW
qualitative

Primary rating from NVD.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

4
Analysis Generated
Jul 08, 2026 - 17:32 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jul 08, 2026 - 16:52 NVD
5.5 (MEDIUM)
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 nvd
MEDIUM 5.5
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionNVD

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: fix leak if split 6 GHz scanning fails

rdev->int_scan_req is leaked if cfg80211_scan() fails. Note that it's supposed to be released at ___cfg80211_scan_done() but this doesn't happen as rdev->scan_req is NULL at that point, too, leading to the early return from the freeing function.

unreferenced object 0xffff8881161d0800 (size 512): comm "wpa_supplicant", pid 379, jiffies 4294749765 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f0 81 13 16 81 88 ff ff ................ backtrace (crc c867fdb6): kmemleak_alloc+0x89/0x90 __kmalloc_noprof+0x2fd/0x410 cfg80211_scan+0x133/0x730 nl80211_trigger_scan+0xc69/0x1cc0 genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0x204/0x2f0 genl_rcv_msg+0x431/0x6b0 netlink_rcv_skb+0x143/0x3f0 genl_rcv+0x27/0x40 netlink_unicast+0x4f6/0x820 netlink_sendmsg+0x797/0xce0 __sock_sendmsg+0xc4/0x160 ____sys_sendmsg+0x5e4/0x890 ___sys_sendmsg+0xf8/0x180 __sys_sendmsg+0x136/0x1e0 __x64_sys_sendmsg+0x76/0xc0 x64_sys_call+0x13f0/0x17d0

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).

AnalysisAI

Memory leak in the Linux kernel wifi cfg80211 subsystem allows a local low-privileged user to cause gradual kernel memory exhaustion by repeatedly triggering failed 6 GHz split scans. The leaked object is a 512-byte allocation in rdev->int_scan_req that escapes the cleanup path in ___cfg80211_scan_done() because rdev->scan_req is NULL at freeing time, causing an early return. No public exploit has been identified; EPSS of 0.16% (6th percentile) reflects very low real-world exploitation probability, and this vulnerability is not listed in CISA KEV.

Technical ContextAI

The flaw resides in cfg80211_scan() within the Linux kernel's wireless configuration subsystem (cfg80211), which mediates between userspace Wi-Fi daemons (primarily wpa_supplicant via nl80211/generic netlink) and wireless hardware drivers. When a split 6 GHz scan is attempted and fails mid-path, a 512-byte kernel heap allocation for rdev->int_scan_req is made but never freed. The intended cleanup path is ___cfg80211_scan_done(), but that function exits early because rdev->scan_req is NULL at the point of failure, leaving rdev->int_scan_req unreferenced and leaked. CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory After Effective Lifetime) describes this class precisely: the allocation outlives the codepath responsible for freeing it. The bug was discovered by the Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) using kmemleak, with the backtrace anchored at cfg80211_scan+0x133/0x730. Affected CPE: cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*.

RemediationAI

The primary fix is to upgrade the Linux kernel to a patched stable release: 6.18.36 or later in the 6.18 series, 7.0.13 or later in the 7.0 series, or Linux 7.1 (mainline). Patch commits are published at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb8db813eba2e56ee001c9fb5c2ce2cb78c42642 (6.18.x), https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e8694f7cc29287e843648d1075177b9a2000d957 (7.0.x), and https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a24134ddc18b4d440714365637d440b7121447b9 (7.1/mainline). If an immediate kernel upgrade is not feasible, a targeted compensating control is to disable 6 GHz band scanning in wpa_supplicant configuration (via freq_list or band exclusion directives), which prevents the scan codepath from being entered; the trade-off is loss of WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 network discovery. Given that exploitation requires local access and repeated triggering, organizations should prioritize this fix during their normal kernel patching cadence rather than as an emergency response, except on memory-constrained embedded or real-time systems.

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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Moderate
Product Status
Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container:2.1.3-7.177 Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/base-os-container:2.2.1-5.155 Affected
Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/rt-os-container:2.1.3-7.206 Container suse/sl-micro/6.1/rt-os-container:2.2.1-5.152 Affected
Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-3P Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-Basic Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-Standard Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-Azure Affected
Image SLES15-SP7-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-Aliyun Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-GDC Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-SAP-CCloud Image SLES15-SP7-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-EC2-ECS-HVM Image SLES15-SP7-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-GCE Affected
Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Azure-3P Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-GCE Affected

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CVE-2026-53258 vulnerability details – vuln.today
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