CVE-2026-98706: wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown

Published Oct 18, 2026
·
Updated

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

wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown

Removing an AP or mesh station can notify the driver and wake TXQs after the station has already been removed from the driver, and can update numstaps and the power-save queues after station cleanup has purged them.

stadeliverpsframes() tests sta->dead only before it starts delivery. A worker that passes that test can be delayed while teardown sets sta->dead and removes the station from the driver; when it resumes it still runs the full delivery.

The existing cancelworksync() sits near the end of cleanupsinglesta(), after the final driver state transition and after PS accounting and queue purging, so it drains the worker only once the state it has to protect has already changed. Before commit d34ba2168a3c ("mac80211: don't delay station destruction") cleanup was deferred through the same ordered workqueue as the delivery work, which kept the two ordered.

Cancel the work after setting sta->dead and before moving the driver state, and move the existing cancellation to the start of cleanupsinglesta(). The first drain closes the driver-lifetime window; driver callbacks during the remaining state transitions can still queue drvdeliverwk through ieee80211stablockawake(), so retain the second drain at the start of cleanupsinglesta(). That drain also covers insertion failures, which reach cleanup without setting sta->dead.

Affected Software

1 affected component
Linux Linux kernel

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade Linux kernel to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Patch d34ba2168a3c

Event History

Oct 18, 2026
CVE Published
via MITRE·03:46 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·03:46 PM
Description
Data Sourced
via NVD·04:17 PM
Description

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