What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-64175?

CVE-2026-64175 has a contested CVSS base score of 7.5 from a third party (e.g. CISA-ADP), while the vendor rates it High. vuln.today uses the vendor rating as authoritative.

Which versions of Linux Kernel are affected by CVE-2026-64175?

A reliability vulnerability in Intel Wi-Fi 7 adapters (CVE-2026-64175) causes the Wi-Fi firmware to crash and leak system resources under normal operating load, leading to repeated disconnections and…. A patch is available.

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2026-64175?

Immediately upon notification (within 24 hours), identify all systems in your organization running Intel BE201 Wi-Fi 7 adapters or the vulnerable iwlwifi driver by consulting your hardware inventory and Linux distribution vendor advisories for affected kernel or driver versions. Within 7 days, obtain the patched iwlwifi driver or kernel update from your Linux vendor and validate it in a non-production test environment, confirming restored Wi-Fi stability and performance. Within 30 days, deploy the vendor patch across your entire affected fleet, prioritizing endpoints serving mobile and remote workforces, and monitor system logs post-deployment for any residual Wi-Fi crashes to confirm the fix.

Linux Kernel CVE-2026-64175

EUVD-2026-45860 HIGH

2026-07-19 Linux

GHSA-6wqh-xprc-m65r

Linux Denial Of Service Intel

High

Disputed · 7.5 Vendor: Linux

Severity by source

Sources disagree (Low–High)

Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY

7.5 HIGH

AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

vuln.today AI

2.9 LOW

Not remotely attacker-triggerable; needs specific Intel Wi-Fi 7 hardware plus a firmware crash under load (AV:L/AC:H), causing only degraded availability (A:L), no C/I impact.

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

SUSE

2.5 LOW

AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Red Hat

5.5 LOW

qualitative

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Lifecycle Timeline

Analysis Generated

Jul 20, 2026 - 17:49 vuln.today

CVSS changed

Jul 20, 2026 - 15:22 NVD

7.5 (HIGH)

Patch available

Jul 19, 2026 - 17:03 EUVD

CVE Published

Jul 19, 2026 - 15:41 cve.org

UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

CVE Published

Jul 19, 2026 - 15:41 cve.org

HIGH 7.5

DescriptionCVE.org

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.

AnalysisAI

Denial of service in the Linux kernel's Intel iwlwifi 'mld' Wi-Fi driver allows a firmware crash on Intel BE201/Wi-Fi 7 adapters to spiral into sustained resource exhaustion. Because iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() failed to check the in_hw_restart flag, TX frames kept being dequeued and pushed to dead firmware, each returning -EIO and being freed in a tight loop that burns CPU and churns skb allocations, causing slab fragmentation and memory pressure. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis, EPSS risk is low (0.16%, 6th percentile), and the issue is not on CISA KEV; it is a reliability/availability bug that manifests under real load, not an attacker-driven remote exploit.

Technical ContextAI

The affected code is the iwlwifi 'mld' operation mode, the driver for Intel's newest Wi-Fi 7 chipsets (e.g., BE200/BE201), introduced in recent kernels (affected from ~6.15). When firmware hits a fatal error such as NMI_INTERRUPT_UNKNOWN, iwl_mld_nic_error() sets mld->fw_status.in_hw_restart to signal an in-progress hardware restart. The RX path (iwl_mld_rx_mpdu at rx.c:1906) and the TXQ allocation worker (iwl_mld_add_txqs_wk at tx.c:156) already gate on this flag, but the TX dequeue path iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() did not, so it continued handing frames to iwl_trans_tx() against dead firmware. The root cause is a missing state guard / improper handling of an exceptional condition (an uncoordinated error-recovery race) rather than a memory-safety defect; NVD lists CWE as N/A. The result is a dequeue-send-fail-free hot loop that wastes CPU and fragments the slab allocator via rapid skb allocation and immediate free.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patch: update to a fixed Linux stable kernel - 6.18.34, 7.0.11, or 7.1 or later - which adds the in_hw_restart guard to iwl_mld_tx_from_txq(); the fixes are in stable commits dc31c694765..., 13f178639..., and 2becb38a3e... at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dc31c69476520bb4c2a208211a8d3c310a62c4d0 (and the two companion commits). Where kernels cannot be updated immediately, the practical compensating controls are to reduce the trigger: cap or throttle sustained high-throughput TX over the affected Wi-Fi interface (e.g., avoid running heavy Tailscale/UDP or bulk transfers over the wireless link) and prefer wired connectivity, since the pathological loop only occurs alongside a firmware crash under load - the trade-off is degraded wireless throughput. If firmware crashes are frequent, updating the iwlwifi firmware blob and disabling the affected Wi-Fi module until patched will avoid the memory-pressure loop entirely at the cost of losing wireless. Do not rely on this being remotely blockable at the network edge, since the loop is driver-internal.

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