CVE-2024-57991 wifi: rtw89: chan: fix soft lockup in rtw89_entity_recalc_mgnt_roles()

What is CVE-2024-57991?

CVE-2024-57991 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 2025. 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: rtw89: chan: fix soft lockup in rtw89_entity_recalc_mgnt_roles()

During rtw89_entity_recalc_mgnt_roles(), there is a normalizing process which will re-order the list if an entry with target pattern is found. And once one is found, should have aborted the list_for_each_entry. But, `break` just aborted the inner for-loop. The outer list_for_each_entry still continues. Normally, only the first entry will match the target pattern, and the re-ordering will change nothing, so there won't be soft lockup. However, in some special cases, soft lockup would happen.

Fix it by `goto fill` to break from the list_for_each_entry.

The following is a sample of kernel log for this problem.

watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 26s! [wpa_supplicant:2055] [...] RIP: 0010:rtw89_entity_recalc ([...] chan.c:392 chan.c:479) rtw89_core [...]

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-57991?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-57991?

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-2024-57991 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-57991 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-2024-57991, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-57991, GHSA-hqg6-v6r3-whgh, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-57991.