CVE-2024-43879 wifi: cfg80211: handle 2x996 RU allocation in cfg80211_calculate_bitrate_he()

What is CVE-2024-43879?

CVE-2024-43879 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Aug 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

wifi: cfg80211: handle 2x996 RU allocation in cfg80211_calculate_bitrate_he()

Currently NL80211_RATE_INFO_HE_RU_ALLOC_2x996 is not handled in cfg80211_calculate_bitrate_he(), leading to below warning:

kernel: invalid HE MCS: bw:6, ru:6 kernel: WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 2312 at net/wireless/util.c:1501 cfg80211_calculate_bitrate_he+0x22b/0x270 [cfg80211]

Fix it by handling 2x996 RU allocation in the same way as 160 MHz bandwidth.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-43879?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-43879?

Apply the vendor's patch.

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-2024-43879 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-43879 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-43879, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-43879, GHSA-38q5-m9p3-gpqf, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-43879.