CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-98829

Low risk· EPSS 5%
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.17%

5th percentile - higher than 5% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, ieee80211_rx_h_defragment() accumulates fragment payload lengths into the u16 field extra_len. When the sum of fragment lengths exceeds 65535 bytes, the value wraps around modulo 65536, causing an undersized buffer allocation and triggering skb_over_panic() in softirq context, which crashes the kernel.

Risk Assessment

A malicious peer or rogue AP can send a sequence of large fragments, causing a kernel crash or hang (denial of service) on a device with a wireless network card handled by mac80211.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that checks whether adding the incoming fragment length would exceed U16_MAX and, if so, purges queued fragments and drops the frame.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel mac80211

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: drop oversized fragments to avoid extra_len overflow In ieee80211_rx_h_defragment(), fragment payloads are accumulated into entry->extra_len as subsequent fragments arrive: entry->extra_len += rx->skb->len; When the final fragment arrives, the head fragment is dequeued, and pskb_expand_head() is called with entry->extra_len to ensure sufficient tailroom for all queued fragments before copying: if (skb_tailroom(rx->skb) < entry->extra_len) { if (unlikely(pskb_expand_head(rx->skb, 0, entry->extra_len, GFP_ATOMIC))) { ... } } while ((skb = __skb_dequeue(&entry->skb_list))) { skb_put_data(rx->skb, skb->data, skb->len); dev_kfree_skb(skb); } In commit 69f132236827 ("mac80211: shrink struct ieee80211_fragment_entry"), entry->extra_len was narrowed from unsigned int to u16 in order to reduce structure memory footprint. However, an IEEE 802.11 frame sequence can contain up to 16 fragments (frag numbers 0..15). If a sequence of large fragments arrives (e.g. from a malicious peer or rogue AP), the sum of fragment lengths can exceed 65535 bytes (for example, 15 fragments of 4400 bytes total 66000 bytes). Because extra_len is a u16, this addition overflows and wraps around modulo 65536 (e.g. 66000 wraps to 464). Consequently, pskb_expand_head() allocates only the truncated amount of tailroom (or is skipped entirely if the head fragment already has >= 464 bytes of tailroom). When skb_put_data() subsequently iterates through the queued skb list, it appends the full payload into the undersized buffer, causing skb_put() to trigger skb_over_panic() and crash the kernel in softirq context. A legitimate MSDU in IEEE 802.11 is at most 2304 bytes (or up to 7935/11454 bytes for A-MSDU, which is not fragmented), well below U16_MAX. Fix this without increasing the size of struct ieee80211_fragment_entry by checking whether adding the incoming fragment length would exceed U16_MAX. If so, purge the queued fragments and drop the frame. [assign a separate drop reason]

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS