CVE-2026-98348 PUBLISHED

wifi: libipw: reject too-short association responses

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: libipw: reject too-short association responses

libipw_handle_assoc_resp() reads the capability, status and aid fields of the 30-byte association response prefix and then computes the information element length as

<pre>stats->len - sizeof(*frame) </pre>

stats->len is a u16 and sizeof() has type size_t, so the subtraction is evaluated as size_t and wraps instead of going negative. Truncating that to the u16 length parameter of libipw_parse_info_param() turns a frame shorter than the fixed fields into a length near 64 KiB, and the parser then reads past the receive buffer.

Both the ipw2100 and ipw2200 management receive paths reach this function having established only that the frame carries the generic 24-byte three-address header.

Reject the frame before any fixed field is touched.

Found by an AI-assisted review of length arithmetic in management frame parsers. Verified with a KUnit case under Generic KASAN on arm64 under QEMU; I do not have the hardware, so it is not tested on a real device.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to 766268b429ae26d8ca599031fa962b0fe4673120 (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to d70bdb84cf1782039384c1ffa7a18b0303c286a7 (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to 400b89217058fac672134a0d4092c8493dadb8ad (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to 46aa75291056b6dc5faaf956dffdb3e9662477b0 (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to e3025ecdb2057f866c09e059fc1466e81d6f243e (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to 14cb425ba1f3a5d849e3bbc3d02d84e0ae195dbb (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to af1b69be19c34e28c0ae54bee954b58cd076969a (excl.)
  • affected from 9e8571affd1c54b9638b4ff9844e47aae07310f6 to adb7118b7d2cfd7e8213c17d7d2829f353017754 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.15 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.15 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 5.10.271 to 5.10.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.15.222 to 5.15.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.189 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.158 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • 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