CVE-2026-98704

/// Technical description

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

wifi: mac80211: keep fallback association elements alive

Associating to a non-transmitted MBSSID profile reads freed memory while

determining the operating channel and applying HT capabilities.

When an association response omits WMM, HT, or VHT information,

ieee80211_assoc_config_link() parses the cached BSS IEs and copies the

missing element pointers out of that fallback parse. For a

non-transmitted MBSSID profile those pointers refer to merged-profile

storage owned by the parse object, and the fallback block frees that

object at its end. The copied pointers are used afterwards to determine

the operating channel, configure bandwidth, and apply HT capabilities.

Keep the fallback parse result alive until association setup finishes.

[reorder variable declaration]

/// Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

/// References