CVE-2026-23444

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure

ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() has three error paths, but only two of them free the skb. The first error path (ieee80211_tx_prepare() returning TX_DROP) does not free it, while invoke_tx_handlers() failure and the fragmentation check both do.

Add kfree_skb() to the first error path so all three are consistent, and remove the now-redundant frees in callers (ath9k, mt76, mac80211_hwsim) to avoid double-free.

Document the skb ownership guarantee in the function's kdoc.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 905ef207d5ed99ca64adfe39fba9ac46e434327aaffected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 5ef8ca1c164786da24169af155c1ca1ff1353cf8affected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 9a779d1f480e83720b5384adf165604e7ee226bdaffected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < f77b51bcee7be2bb686b5f7a2d4a1921e4bdb9f4affected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 3b4d27acafaeab478fd24f79ad6e593a892828b9affected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 06e769dddcbeb3baf2ce346273b53dd61fdbecf4affected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < 50f1b690b4868923fbd242298def2fb88662f108affected
LinuxLinux06be6b149f7e406bcf16098567f5a6c9f042bced < d5ad6ab61cbd89afdb60881f6274f74328af3ee9affected
LinuxLinux3.13affected
LinuxLinux0 < 3.13unaffected
LinuxLinux5.10.258 <= 5.10.*unaffected
LinuxLinux5.15.209 <= 5.15.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.1.175 <= 6.1.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.6.136 <= 6.6.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.12.84 <= 6.12.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.18.20 <= 6.18.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.19.10 <= 6.19.*unaffected
LinuxLinux7.0 <= *unaffected

Weaknesses

References