CVE-2026-98182 PUBLISHED

wifi: mac80211: refuse to make a monitor active when it has no queue

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 06.10.2026 Updated: 06.10.2026

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

wifi: mac80211: refuse to make a monitor active when it has no queue

A monitor interface only gets a TXQ if it's created active, and one can't be added later. Setting the flag on a down interface is still allowed, so the driver is handed a monitor with no queue. ath9k dereferences it:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000066 RIP: 0010:ath_tx_node_init+0x49/0x170 [ath9k] ath9k_add_interface+0x10c/0x140 [ath9k] drv_add_interface+0x54/0x250 [mac80211] ieee80211_do_open+0x32f/0x800 [mac80211]

Reached with CAP_NET_ADMIN by "iw dev X set monitor active" followed by "ip link set X up". RTNL is held, so netlink operations block behind it.

Refuse the flag when there is no queue to give.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 79af1f866193de29e65a4dba7d0dab14b0c0ff93 to b7b7d46ec4fa127767931938b282c361c0519af6 (excl.)
  • affected from 79af1f866193de29e65a4dba7d0dab14b0c0ff93 to abe15e643e576459469867758ae9c586a7bab95d (excl.)
  • affected from 79af1f866193de29e65a4dba7d0dab14b0c0ff93 to 46c223468537a05a404699771cd3e68532dab5e6 (excl.)
  • affected from 79af1f866193de29e65a4dba7d0dab14b0c0ff93 to 2b04d6556964ae9f89819b86a0a7801e39c3aae5 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 4.15 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 4.15 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.112 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.54 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.8 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc4 to * (incl.)

References