CVE-2026-97500
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Realtek Wi-Fi driver (rtw89). The driver fails to validate the length of physical layer (PHY) status information elements before parsing received data. A malicious or malfunctioning wireless device could exploit this flaw by providing status data with an unexpected length, triggering an out-of-bounds memory read. This issue primarily leads to a kernel crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).
Statement
A moderate-impact out-of-bounds read flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Realtek rtw89 wireless driver. When handling received traffic, the driver parses physical layer (PHY) status information elements reported by the wireless hardware without first validating the element length against the received buffer boundaries. A malicious or malfunctioning Wi-Fi device or firmware reporting a PHY status element with an unexpected length can therefore cause the driver to read memory beyond the valid range, resulting in a kernel fault or crash and a denial of service; the upstream fix does not demonstrate any information disclosure or memory-modification primitive. Red Hat rates this flaw Moderate (CVSS 5.5, AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) because triggering the malformed PHY status data is tied to the machine's own wireless hardware rather than an ordinary remote network frame. The rtw89 driver is not present in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, and the RHEL 8.4 streams, so those products are not affected; affected products include the RHEL 8, 9, and 10 kernel and kernel-rt streams, Red Hat In-Vehicle OS 2, and OpenShift Container Platform RHEL CoreOS images that ship the driver. Fixes for the affected streams are currently deferred to a future update because this denial-of-service-only issue does not warrant an immediate maintenance release, leaving a residual risk of a local kernel crash should the wireless adapter report malformed PHY status data.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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