CVE-2026-74678 PUBLISHED

net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 15.08.2026 Published: 22.08.2026 Updated: 22.08.2026

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

net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()

When the interface has NETIF_F_SG enabled and skb_linearize() fails in ax88179_tx_fixup(), the function returns NULL without freeing the skb.

usbnet_start_xmit() treats a NULL return from tx_fixup() as a drop (info->flags does not set FLAG_MULTI_PACKET for this driver), jumping to the "drop" label where it does if (skb) dev_kfree_skb_any(skb). Because tx_fixup() returned NULL, the local skb variable in usbnet_start_xmit() is NULL, so the original skb is never freed — a memory leak on every TX frame whose linearization fails (i.e. under memory pressure).

Free the skb before returning, matching the error handling already used for the pskb_expand_head() failure path in the same function.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 83a765cbd7b4d11b0b9fa1bb9d941ae911a2159b (excl.)
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 1c63303659a2264bd55d9813df74cb4caeed5922 (excl.)
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 2be5091fa693b9119ad25a8bb8c149d236a23ade (excl.)
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 58733b1dd46bb231d9d279c132a20ee46da1b664 (excl.)
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 4039cd807a5a46dc5f7618fffae926b8ad8455eb (excl.)
  • affected from 16b1c4e01c89ba07367461e0bc4cb84993c2d027 to 1f428e30947395d9b9aacee03e25a4e6cfcad7a4 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 5.17 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 5.17 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.183 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.152 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.104 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.45 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1.9 to 7.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2 to * (incl.)

References