Linux Kernel up to 6.18.52 mac80211 ieee80211_add_tx_radiotap_header out-of-bounds

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as very critical has been detected in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.52. The impacted element is the function ieee80211_add_tx_radiotap_header of the component mac80211. The manipulation leads to out-of-bounds. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-97511. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.52. This issue affects the function ieee80211_add_tx_radiotap_header of the component mac80211. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a out-of-bounds vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-125. The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: avoid out-of-bounds access in monitor In NAN, we don't know on what band the frame will be sent. Therefore we set info->band to NUM_NL80211_BANDS. However, this leads to out-of-bound access in ieee80211_add_tx_radiotap_header when we try to access the sbands array. Fix it by not accessing the array if the band is NUM_NL80211_BANDS. This means that we will not report rate info for legacy rate in NAN. But nobody really cares about it.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-97511 since 09/24/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/24/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.18.53 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 7f087f70e020b16a5b967332ee6e937817eaa173/03c41203ee5a833a9d7a7630be190830cede29d8 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 6.18.36
• 6.18.37
• 6.18.38
• 6.18.39
• 6.18.40
• 6.18.41
• 6.18.42
• 6.18.43
• 6.18.44
• 6.18.45
• 6.18.46
• 6.18.47
• 6.18.48
• 6.18.49
• 6.18.50
• 6.18.51
• 6.18.52

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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