CVE-2026-72004

wifi: mac80211: fix memory leak in ieee80211_register_hw()

State: Published
Severity: Not scored
Published: Aug 15, 2026
Updated: Aug 17, 2026
Reserved: Aug 9, 2026

Description

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

wifi: mac80211: fix memory leak in ieee80211_register_hw()

If kmemdup() fails while copying supported band structures, the error path jumps to fail_rate. This skips rate_control_deinitialize() and leaks the initialized local->rate_ctrl.

Fix this by adding a fail_band label that shares the rate-control cleanup path before falling through to the remaining teardown.

The bug was first flagged by an experimental analysis tool we are developing for kernel memory-management bugs while analyzing v6.13-rc1. The tool is still under development and is not yet publicly available. Manual inspection confirms that the bug is still present in v7.1-rc7.

An x86_64 allyesconfig build showed no new warnings. As we do not have a suitable mac80211 device/driver combination to test with, no runtime testing was able to be performed.

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

Product	Versions
LinuxLinux	09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before f01eec75fd372961550b928902f3a2c11fca1dafAffected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 3d8b9b290421c3cd505fcd2f551f143f8142786aAffected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 08b71bd92317f99642b842cfc0d30200868162fcAffected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before a02b52fe54f7b5107aefa1ce28c2f69749c57616Affected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 45e9ac538cdff7bce656d731114a64eda85af0d7Affected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before bdc0b8bfdc142439d6708b072e8159eb515ee7b0Affected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before a7584f261e64fe14e45bdf70f343e16c1ee3a037Affected 09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 95fc02722edde02946d0d475221f2b2054d3d8baAffected
LinuxLinux	4.20Affected before 4.20Not affected 5.10.261 through 5.10.Not affected 5.15.212 through 5.15.Not affected 6.1.178 through 6.1.Not affected 6.6.145 through 6.6.Not affected 6.12.97 through 6.12.Not affected 6.18.40 through 6.18.Not affected 7.1.5 through 7.1.*Not affected 7.2 and laterNot affected

Product

Versions

LinuxLinux

09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before f01eec75fd372961550b928902f3a2c11fca1dafAffected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 3d8b9b290421c3cd505fcd2f551f143f8142786aAffected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 08b71bd92317f99642b842cfc0d30200868162fcAffected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before a02b52fe54f7b5107aefa1ce28c2f69749c57616Affected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 45e9ac538cdff7bce656d731114a64eda85af0d7Affected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before bdc0b8bfdc142439d6708b072e8159eb515ee7b0Affected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before a7584f261e64fe14e45bdf70f343e16c1ee3a037Affected
09b4a4faf9d037990ac4f8110dd944b27b42d5df to before 95fc02722edde02946d0d475221f2b2054d3d8baAffected

LinuxLinux

4.20Affected
before 4.20Not affected
5.10.261 through 5.10.*Not affected
5.15.212 through 5.15.*Not affected
6.1.178 through 6.1.*Not affected
6.6.145 through 6.6.*Not affected
6.12.97 through 6.12.*Not affected
6.18.40 through 6.18.*Not affected
7.1.5 through 7.1.*Not affected
7.2 and laterNot affected

References

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