CVE-2026-115696
Description
A flaw was found in iwd. This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to potentially execute arbitrary code or trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by crashing the wireless daemon. When generating Radio Resource Management (RRM) beacon reports, iwd copies cached network records into a fixed-size stack buffer without verifying memory boundaries. An attacker within wireless range can broadcast fake beacon frames and transmit spoofed measurement requests to overflow the buffer with attacker-controlled data.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Important severity because an unauthenticated adjacent attacker within radio proximity can corrupt stack memory in the wireless daemon, potentially causing a denial of service or arbitrary code execution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux does not deploy iwd by default, as wireless connectivity standardly relies on NetworkManager with wpa_supplicant. Exploitation requires the client to be actively associated with an access point lacking Protected Management Frames (802.11w), allowing the adversary to inject spoofed radio measurement frames.
Mitigation
--- CME Mitigation Guidance (2026-11-02) ---
Disclaimer: The following mitigation solutions are provided as a courtesy, pending the application of an official patch. This content was generated utilizing AI tools in conjunction with data from https://cmetaxonomy.org. Customers are advised to independently evaluate and test these temporary mitigations within their own infrastructure.
The highest-value action is to enforce strict bounds checking when accumulating cached BSS records into the stack buffer during RRM beacon report generation in iwd: upgrade to the fixed Iwd builds, which enforce bounds checks before appending each 31-byte measurement report record to the fixed 512-byte stack buffer in rrm_report_beacon_results, closing all 2 injection vectors (spoofed 802.11k radio measurement request action frames, broadcast crafted 802.11 beacon frames). Until patched, this is only a concern on Linux systems running iwd connected to wireless networks lacking Protected Management Frames — wireless connections enforcing Protected Management Frames or deployments using wpa_supplicant instead of iwd are unaffected — so connect only to networks enforcing Protected Management Frames (802.11w) to block spoofed management frames from adjacent wireless attackers. As a compensating measure, enable address space layout randomization to randomize process stack and library locations, compile binaries with full RELRO and PIE to enforce position-independent execution and protect the GOT, enable control flow integrity or shadow call stack to validate or isolate return address storage, run SELinux in enforcing mode to confine the iwd daemon and restrict unauthorized filesystem and network actions, and enforce non-executable memory via the NX or XD bit to prevent code execution on stack pages. These controls limit blast radius and contain exploitation, but they do not fix the underlying stack buffer overflow defect — apply the upstream patch to fully remediate.
Highest-impact CME: CME-301 SELinux (Enforcing Mode) (medium)
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Integrity
Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Write operations could cause memory corruption. In some cases, an adversary can modify control data such as return addresses in order to execute unexpected code.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
Attempting to access out-of-range, invalid, or unauthorized memory could cause the product to crash.
Other
Technical Impact: Unexpected State
Subsequent write operations can produce undefined or unexpected results.
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