CVE-2021-26257 Denial of service in Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R) and Killer(TM) Bluetooth(R) products

Medium 5.5 Published 18 Aug 2022 Updated 5 May 2025

An authenticated local attacker can cause a denial of service in Intel and Killer Bluetooth firmware due to improper buffer restrictions.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2021-26257?

CVE-2021-26257 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R) and Killer(TM) Bluetooth(R) products, published on 18 Aug 2022. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Improper buffer restrictions in firmware for some Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R) and Killer(TM) Bluetooth(R) products before version 22.120 may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable denial of service via local access.

Weakness: CWE-119

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-26257?

It affects 18 products.

Products include Intel Dual Band Wireless-Ac 3165 Firmware, Intel Dual Band Wireless-Ac 3168 Firmware, Intel Dual Band Wireless-Ac 8260 Firmware, Intel Dual Band Wireless-Ac 8265 Firmware, Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6 Ax1650 Firmware, Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6e Ax1675 Firmware and 12 more.

How do I fix CVE-2021-26257?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-26257 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2021-26257 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-26257 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-x3gx-7gmp-75hw.