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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2024-26896 json

wifi: wfx: fix memory leak when starting AP

published 2024-04-17 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2024-24158

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

wifi: wfx: fix memory leak when starting AP

Kmemleak reported this error:

unreferenced object 0xd73d1180 (size 184): comm "wpa_supplicant", pid 1559, jiffies 13006305 (age 964.245s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1e 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<5ca11420>] kmem_cache_alloc+0x20c/0x5ac [<127bdd74>] __alloc_skb+0x144/0x170 [<fb8a5e38>] __netdev_alloc_skb+0x50/0x180 [<0f9fa1d5>] __ieee80211_beacon_get+0x290/0x4d4 [mac80211] [<7accd02d>] ieee80211_beacon_get_tim+0x54/0x18c [mac80211] [<41e25cc3>] wfx_start_ap+0xc8/0x234 [wfx] [<93a70356>] ieee80211_start_ap+0x404/0x6b4 [mac80211] [<a4a661cd>] nl80211_start_ap+0x76c/0x9e0 [cfg80211] [<47bd8b68>] genl_rcv_msg+0x198/0x378 [<453ef796>] netlink_rcv_skb+0xd0/0x130 [<6b7c977a>] genl_rcv+0x34/0x44 [<66b2d04d>] netlink_unicast+0x1b4/0x258 [<f965b9b6>] netlink_sendmsg+0x1e8/0x428 [<aadb8231>] ____sys_sendmsg+0x1e0/0x274 [<d2b5212d>] ___sys_sendmsg+0x80/0xb4 [<69954f45>] __sys_sendmsg+0x64/0xa8 unreferenced object 0xce087000 (size 1024): comm "wpa_supplicant", pid 1559, jiffies 13006305 (age 964.246s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 10 00 07 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ...@............ backtrace: [<9a993714>] __kmalloc_track_caller+0x230/0x600 [<f83ea192>] kmalloc_reserve.constprop.0+0x30/0x74 [<a2c61343>] __alloc_skb+0xa0/0x170 [<fb8a5e38>] __netdev_alloc_skb+0x50/0x180 [<0f9fa1d5>] __ieee80211_beacon_get+0x290/0x4d4 [mac80211] [<7accd02d>] ieee80211_beacon_get_tim+0x54/0x18c [mac80211] [<41e25cc3>] wfx_start_ap+0xc8/0x234 [wfx] [<93a70356>] ieee80211_start_ap+0x404/0x6b4 [mac80211] [<a4a661cd>] nl80211_start_ap+0x76c/0x9e0 [cfg80211] [<47bd8b68>] genl_rcv_msg+0x198/0x378 [<453ef796>] netlink_rcv_skb+0xd0/0x130 [<6b7c977a>] genl_rcv+0x34/0x44 [<66b2d04d>] netlink_unicast+0x1b4/0x258 [<f965b9b6>] netlink_sendmsg+0x1e8/0x428 [<aadb8231>] ____sys_sendmsg+0x1e0/0x274 [<d2b5212d>] ___sys_sendmsg+0x80/0xb4

However, since the kernel is build optimized, it seems the stack is not accurate. It appears the issue is related to wfx_set_mfp_ap(). The issue is obvious in this function: memory allocated by ieee80211_beacon_get() is never released. Fixing this leak makes kmemleak happy.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.83, 6.6.23, 6.7.11, 6.8.2, 6.9
  • linux linux_kernel a1f57a0127b8
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.85-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.7.12-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-26896

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-160.170
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-35.35
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1095.102
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1009.9
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1095.104
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1008.9
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1091.97
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1004.7

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-26896

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.62.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.62.2
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.62.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.62.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1663-1SUSE-SU-2024:1659-1SUSE-SU-2024:1644-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-26896 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: wifi: wfx: fix memory leak when starting AP

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux
  • linux linux_kernel

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.