Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-10-18T00:00:00 kernel: wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CWE-367

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown Removing an AP or mesh station can notify the driver and wake TXQs after the station has already been removed from the driver, and can update num_sta_ps and the power-save queues after station cleanup has purged them. sta_deliver_ps_frames() tests sta->dead only before it starts delivery. A worker that passes that test can be delayed while teardown sets sta->dead and removes the station from the driver; when it resumes it still runs the full delivery. The existing cancel_work_sync() sits near the end of __cleanup_single_sta(), after the final driver state transition and after PS accounting and queue purging, so it drains the worker only once the state it has to protect has already changed. Before commit d34ba2168a3c ("mac80211: don't delay station destruction") cleanup was deferred through the same ordered workqueue as the delivery work, which kept the two ordered. Cancel the work after setting sta->dead and before moving the driver state, and move the existing cancellation to the start of __cleanup_single_sta(). The first drain closes the driver-lifetime window; driver callbacks during the remaining state transitions can still queue drv_deliver_wk through ieee80211_sta_block_awake(), so retain the second drain at the start of __cleanup_single_sta(). That drain also covers insertion failures, which reach cleanup without setting sta->dead.

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's mac80211 wireless subsystem. A local user or adjacent attacker could trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) resulting in a system crash. This issue arises from a race condition during the removal of an access point (AP) or mesh station, where background power-save frame delivery tasks continue running after station cleanup has already begun. This timing window causes operations on already purged driver queues and data structures, corrupting state and destabilizing the kernel.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate severity because exploitation requires an adjacent attacker within wireless range or a local user on a host operating as a wireless access point or mesh node, and is limited to causing a denial of service without compromising data confidentiality or system integrity. Standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux server installations rarely utilize wireless networking hardware or run access point services, substantially limiting the attack surface in enterprise environments. Virtual machines and bare-metal systems lacking wireless network adapters are unaffected by this flaw during normal operation. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Out of support scope kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Fix deferred kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel-rt Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98706 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98706 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/security/vulns.git/plain/cve/published/2026/CVE-2026-98706.mbox