CVE-2026-68409 PUBLISHED

wifi: mac80211: defer link RX stats percpu free to RCU

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 30.07.2026 Published: 10.08.2026 Updated: 10.08.2026

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

wifi: mac80211: defer link RX stats percpu free to RCU

sta_remove_link() frees a removed MLO link's RX stats percpu buffer right away, but defers only the link container to RCU:

<pre>sta_info_free_link(&alloc->info); kfree_rcu(alloc, rcu_head); </pre>

The RX fast path reads link_sta under rcu_read_lock and writes the percpu stats. A reader that resolved link_sta before the removal keeps the pointer. The container stays alive from the kfree_rcu, so the read still works. But the percpu block it points to is already freed. This needs uses_rss. That is when pcpu_rx_stats exists.

The full STA teardown frees the deflink stats only after synchronize_net(). The link removal path had no such barrier. The race is hard to win in practice, but the free should still wait for RCU.

Free the link together with its data from a single RCU callback, so the percpu block is reclaimed only after readers drain.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from c71420db653aba30a234d1e4cf86dde376e604fa to 2aa1789880fa5e41049b0f6a74a4fc2fa1997610 (excl.)
  • affected from c71420db653aba30a234d1e4cf86dde376e604fa to a03fceae0c65b31ce31840dac5e26684ceecb65b (excl.)
  • affected from c71420db653aba30a234d1e4cf86dde376e604fa to aa2eb62525188269cdd402a583b9a8ed94657ff0 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.0 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.0 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.42 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1.6 to 7.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2-rc4 to * (incl.)

References