Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3 mwifiex mwifiex_search_oui_in_ie out-of-bounds

CVSS Meta Temp Score CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.	Current Exploit Price (≈) Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.	CTI Interest Score Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
7.0	$0-$5k	0.25

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3. Affected by this issue is the function mwifiex_search_oui_in_ie of the component mwifiex. The manipulation leads to out-of-bounds. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-98186. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function mwifiex_search_oui_in_ie of the component mwifiex. 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: mwifiex: bound the pairwise-cipher OUI walk to the IE length mwifiex_search_oui_in_ie() reads a pairwise-cipher (PTK) count from a beacon/probe-response RSN or WPA information element and then walks that many 4-byte OUIs, comparing each with memcmp(). The count comes straight from the (attacker-supplied) IE and is never checked against the element's own length, and the callers admit the element on element_id alone (has_ieee_hdr() / has_vendor_hdr(), no length check). A crafted RSN/WPA IE with a large pairwise count therefore makes the walk read up to 255 * 4 bytes past the element -- an out-of-bounds read of the kmemdup()'d beacon buffer, reachable from any AP whose beacon/probe response is processed during scan-result parsing. Pass the number of IE bytes available at the OUI list and bound the walk to the element. Keep the length signed and reject a negative value before any unsigned arithmetic, so a small or zero IE length cannot underflow to a large size_t and defeat the bound. Found by 0sec automated security-research tooling (https://0sec.ai).

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-98186 since 09/25/2026. 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 10/07/2026).

Upgrading to version 5.10.271, 5.15.222, 6.1.189, 6.6.158, 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8 or 7.3-rc4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 77e642af7f2f6029e12a35c847c56cbd0466e799/982b8fcdbb28f63bbbf02f0822c0bbda12ec27ed/58767b41f87244eebaa5a475b9d276c83b89b933/2402c9e2644b7e10c7aaaf87bf12743d7e363559/54a9cc5bd70b0d77a5069d4c46998c679a10c857/8bbef2b1ebfbadc0b9c37bbbf9c9e26fe2e41960/46cda9d42f0d6ec3057d878ddb1f38c0ab9f51df/e667aee1c192d67d27c803007bfa9c6e0873e959 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-3743). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.270
• 5.15.221
• 6.1.188
• 6.6.157
• 6.12.111
• 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
• 6.18.53
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.3-rc1
• 7.3-rc2
• 7.3-rc3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 7.3
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 7.0

VulDB Base Score: 7.3
VulDB Temp Score: 7.0
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Out-of-bounds
CWE: CWE-125 / CWE-119
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: No
Local: No
Remote: Yes

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined

EPSS Score: 🔒
EPSS Percentile: 🔒

Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Kernel 5.10.271/5.15.222/6.1.189/6.6.158/6.12.112/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4
Patch: 77e642af7f2f6029e12a35c847c56cbd0466e799/982b8fcdbb28f63bbbf02f0822c0bbda12ec27ed/58767b41f87244eebaa5a475b9d276c83b89b933/2402c9e2644b7e10c7aaaf87bf12743d7e363559/54a9cc5bd70b0d77a5069d4c46998c679a10c857/8bbef2b1ebfbadc0b9c37bbbf9c9e26fe2e41960/46cda9d42f0d6ec3057d878ddb1f38c0ab9f51df/e667aee1c192d67d27c803007bfa9c6e0873e959

Timelineinfo

09/25/2026 CVE reserved
10/06/2026 +11 days Advisory disclosed
10/06/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
10/07/2026 +1 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-98186 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-98186
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-414107
CERT Bund: WID-SEC-2026-3743 - Linux Kernel: Mehrere Schwachstellen

Entryinfo

Created: 10/06/2026 12:49
Updated: 10/07/2026 02:33
Changes: 10/06/2026 12:49 (59), 10/07/2026 02:33 (7)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Discussion

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