CVE-2026-23444

wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure

State: Published
Severity: 7.8 High
Published: Apr 3, 2026
Updated: Oct 19, 2026
Reserved: Jan 13, 2026

Description

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.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	7.8 High	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	Linux

Weaknesses

CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

Affected Products

Product	Versions
LinuxLinux	06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 905ef207d5ed99ca64adfe39fba9ac46e434327aAffected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 5ef8ca1c164786da24169af155c1ca1ff1353cf8Affected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 9a779d1f480e83720b5384adf165604e7ee226bdAffected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before f77b51bcee7be2bb686b5f7a2d4a1921e4bdb9f4Affected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 3b4d27acafaeab478fd24f79ad6e593a892828b9Affected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 06e769dddcbeb3baf2ce346273b53dd61fdbecf4Affected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 50f1b690b4868923fbd242298def2fb88662f108Affected 06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before d5ad6ab61cbd89afdb60881f6274f74328af3ee9Affected
LinuxLinux	3.13Affected before 3.13Not affected 5.10.258 through 5.10.Not affected 5.15.209 through 5.15.Not affected 6.1.175 through 6.1.Not affected 6.6.136 through 6.6.Not affected 6.12.84 through 6.12.Not affected 6.18.20 through 6.18.Not affected 6.19.10 through 6.19.*Not affected 7.0 and laterNot affected

Product

Versions

LinuxLinux

06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 905ef207d5ed99ca64adfe39fba9ac46e434327aAffected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 5ef8ca1c164786da24169af155c1ca1ff1353cf8Affected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 9a779d1f480e83720b5384adf165604e7ee226bdAffected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before f77b51bcee7be2bb686b5f7a2d4a1921e4bdb9f4Affected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 3b4d27acafaeab478fd24f79ad6e593a892828b9Affected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 06e769dddcbeb3baf2ce346273b53dd61fdbecf4Affected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before 50f1b690b4868923fbd242298def2fb88662f108Affected
06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced to before d5ad6ab61cbd89afdb60881f6274f74328af3ee9Affected

LinuxLinux

3.13Affected
before 3.13Not affected
5.10.258 through 5.10.*Not affected
5.15.209 through 5.15.*Not affected
6.1.175 through 6.1.*Not affected
6.6.136 through 6.6.*Not affected
6.12.84 through 6.12.*Not affected
6.18.20 through 6.18.*Not affected
6.19.10 through 6.19.*Not affected
7.0 and laterNot affected

References

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