CVE-2026-98332
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's mac80211 wireless subsystem. The Tunneled Direct Link Setup (TDLS) code fails to verify whether a station is a direct-link peer rather than an access point before executing TDLS operations. A local attacker can exploit this flaw to cause inconsistent kernel state and warnings, potentially resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) when the access point station is removed.
Statement
A low impact flaw was found in the Linux kernel's mac80211 wireless subsystem, affecting the kernel and kernel-rt packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 through 10 (including ELS and z-stream update streams), Red Hat In-Vehicle OS 2, and the RHEL CoreOS kernels shipped with OpenShift Container Platform 4 and later. The Tunneled Direct Link Setup (TDLS) code in ieee80211_tdls_oper() fails to verify that a station is a TDLS peer before operating on it, so the access point (AP) station can be confused for a TDLS peer. A local attacker able to trigger TDLS operations can exploit this flaw to place the kernel in an inconsistent state, resulting in kernel warnings and potentially a denial of service when the AP station is removed at that time or later. Confidentiality and integrity are not affected. Although the Red Hat CVSS 3.1 base score for this flaw is 5.5 (Moderate), Red Hat rates its impact as low because exploitation requires local access and the consequence is limited to system availability. Fixes for the affected streams are currently deferred because this is a low-severity, local-only availability issue; the residual risk of the deferral is that a local user could trigger kernel warnings or a denial of service on systems using mac80211-based wireless networking. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Extended Lifecycle Support is out of support scope and no fix is planned for that stream.
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)
Availability,Integrity,Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory; Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
When a memory buffer is accessed using the wrong type, it could read or write memory out of the bounds of the buffer, if the allocated buffer is smaller than the type that the code is attempting to access, leading to a crash and possibly code execution.
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