CVE-2026-80939
Low risk· EPSS 10%Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk10th percentile - higher than 10% of all known CVEs
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the rtw89 WiFi PCI driver lacked a .shutdown callback to stop rfkill polling during reboot. As a result, arm64 platforms could panic with an asynchronous SError when the driver performed an MMIO read after the PCIe link was torn down. A new rtw89_pci_shutdown() function sets the RTW89_FLAG_SHUTDOWN flag, causing rtw89_ops_rfkill_poll() to return early.
Risk Assessment
On arm64 platforms with rtw89 PCIe WiFi cards, a warm reboot can cause a kernel panic and service outage. The issue occurs during reboot, which may hinder remote server management and cause downtime.
Recommendation
Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that adds the .shutdown callback to the rtw89 PCI driver. Until then, avoid warm reboots on affected arm64 platforms or consider unloading the rtw89_pci module if the card is not in use.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel rtw89 PCI driver
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rtw89: pci: add .shutdown callback to stop rfkill polling on reboot Since the hardware rfkill polling was introduced, arm64 platforms can panic with an asynchronous SError during warm reboot: SError Interrupt on CPU8, code 0x00000000be000011 -- SError Workqueue: events_power_efficient rfkill_poll [rfkill] rtw89_pci_ops_read8+0x94/0x160 [rtw89_pci] rtw89_core_rfkill_poll+0x50/0x1e0 [rtw89_core] rtw89_ops_rfkill_poll+0x40/0x68 [rtw89_core] ieee80211_rfkill_poll+0x3c/0x70 [mac80211] cfg80211_rfkill_poll+0x40/0x2a0 [cfg80211] rfkill_poll+0x30/0x88 [rfkill] Kernel panic - not syncing: Asynchronous SError Interrupt On the reboot path the kernel only runs device_shutdown(), which calls each driver's .shutdown callback; .remove is not invoked. The rtw89 PCI driver had no .shutdown callback, so nothing stopped the rfkill polling work while the platform was tearing the PCIe link down. Once the link is gone, the next MMIO read from the poll handler targets a non-responding device and is reported as a fatal asynchronous SError on arm64. Add rtw89_pci_shutdown(), wired to all rtw89 PCI device drivers, which sets a new RTW89_FLAG_SHUTDOWN flag (mirroring the USB RTW89_FLAG_UNPLUGGED pattern). When the flag is set, rtw89_ops_rfkill_poll() returns early, so no MMIO read is issued to the chip after shutdown begins and the SError no longer occurs. This does not call the full .remove path from .shutdown, to keep the shutdown handler minimal and avoid running the non-idempotent teardown twice.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS