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CVE-2026-23396

Updated on 26 Mar 2026

Severity

5.5 Medium severity

Details

CVSS score
5.5
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE ID
Links
NISTCIRCLRHELUbuntu

Overview

About vulnerability

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

wifi: mac80211: fix NULL deref in mesh_matches_local()

mesh_matches_local() unconditionally dereferences ie->mesh_config to compare mesh configuration parameters. When called from mesh_rx_csa_frame(), the parsed action-frame elements may not contain a Mesh Configuration IE, leaving ie->mesh_config NULL and triggering a kernel NULL pointer dereference.

The other two callers are already safe:

  • ieee80211_mesh_rx_bcn_presp() checks !elems->mesh_config before calling mesh_matches_local()
  • mesh_plink_get_event() is only reached through mesh_process_plink_frame(), which checks !elems->mesh_config, too

mesh_rx_csa_frame() is the only caller that passes raw parsed elements to mesh_matches_local() without guarding mesh_config. An adjacent attacker can exploit this by sending a crafted CSA action frame that includes a valid Mesh ID IE but omits the Mesh Configuration IE, crashing the kernel.

The captured crash log:

Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address … KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] Workqueue: events_unbound cfg80211_wiphy_work […] Call Trace: <TASK> ? __pfx_mesh_matches_local (net/mac80211/mesh.c:65) ieee80211_mesh_rx_queued_mgmt (net/mac80211/mesh.c:1686) […] ieee80211_iface_work (net/mac80211/iface.c:1754 net/mac80211/iface.c:1802) […] cfg80211_wiphy_work (net/wireless/core.c:426) process_one_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3280) ? assign_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:1219) worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3352) ? __pfx_worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3385) kthread (net/kernel/kthread.c:436) […] ret_from_fork_asm (net/arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:255) </TASK>

This patch adds a NULL check for ie->mesh_config at the top of mesh_matches_local() to return false early when the Mesh Configuration IE is absent.

Details

Affected product:
AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 6 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , CloudLinux 7 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Oracle Linux 6 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
Affected packages:
kernel @ 5.14.0 (+18 more)

Fixes

KernelCare state

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.

Operating system Status Covered kernels
Debian 11 Released
37 kernels
  • 5.10.46-5
  • 5.10.70-1
  • 5.10.46-4
  • 5.10.84-1
  • 5.10.92-1
  • 5.10.92-2
  • 5.10.103-1
  • 5.10.106-1
  • 5.10.113-1
  • 5.10.120-1
  • 5.10.127-1
  • 5.10.127-2
  • 5.10.136-1
  • 5.10.140-1
  • 5.10.149-1
  • 5.10.149-2
  • 5.10.158-2
  • 5.10.162-1
  • 5.10.179-1
  • 5.10.179-2
  • 5.10.179-3
  • 5.10.179-5
  • 5.10.191-1
  • 5.10.197-1
  • 5.10.178-3
  • 5.10.205-2
  • 5.10.205-1
  • 5.10.209-2
  • 5.10.216-1
  • 5.10.218-1
  • 5.10.221-1
  • 5.10.223-1
  • 5.10.226-1
  • 5.10.234-1
  • 5.10.237-1
  • 5.10.244-1
  • 5.10.247-1
Debian 11 cloud Released
17 kernels
  • 5.10.113-1
  • 5.10.179-2
  • 5.10.179-3
  • 5.10.179-5
  • 5.10.191-1
  • 5.10.197-1
  • 5.10.205-2
  • 5.10.209-2
  • 5.10.216-1
  • 5.10.218-1
  • 5.10.221-1
  • 5.10.223-1
  • 5.10.226-1
  • 5.10.234-1
  • 5.10.237-1
  • 5.10.244-1
  • 5.10.247-1
Debian 12 Released
35 kernels
  • 6.1.38-1
  • 6.1.38-2
  • 6.1.38-4
  • 6.1.52-1
  • 6.1.55-1
  • 6.1.64-1
  • 6.1.66-1
  • 6.1.69-1
  • 6.1.76-1
  • 6.1.27-1
  • 6.1.67-1
  • 6.1.85-1
  • 6.1.90-1
  • 6.1.94-1
  • 6.1.99-1
  • 6.1.106-3
  • 6.1.112-1
  • 6.1.115-1
  • 6.1.119-1
  • 6.1.123-1
  • 6.1.128-1
  • 6.1.124-1
  • 6.1.129-1
  • 6.1.133-1
  • 6.1.135-1
  • 6.1.137-1
  • 6.1.140-1
  • 6.1.139-1
  • 6.1.147-1
  • 6.1.148-1
  • 6.1.153-1
  • 6.1.158-1
  • 6.1.159-1
  • 6.1.162-1
  • 6.1.164-1
Debian 13 Planned —
Ubuntu 22.04 Planned —
Ubuntu 24.04 Planned —