# CVE-2025-23129: wifi: ath11k: Clear affinity hint before calling ath11k_pcic_free_irq() in error path

> A missing affinity hint cleanup in the ath11k WiFi driver error path causes a kernel warning, potentially leading to system instability or denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 16 Apr 2025
- **Updated:** 14 Sep 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-23129, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23129, GHSA-ch3q-jhhp-7w44, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-23129, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-23129, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-23129, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-23129

## What is CVE-2025-23129?

CVE-2025-23129 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 Apr 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: ath11k: Clear affinity hint before calling ath11k_pcic_free_irq() in error path

If a shared IRQ is used by the driver due to platform limitation, then the
IRQ affinity hint is set right after the allocation of IRQ vectors in
ath11k_pci_alloc_msi(). This does no harm unless one of the functions
requesting the IRQ fails and attempt to free the IRQ. This results in the
below warning:

WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 349 at kernel/irq/manage.c:1929 free_irq+0x278/0x29c
Call trace:
 free_irq+0x278/0x29c
 ath11k_pcic_free_irq+0x70/0x10c [ath11k]
 ath11k_pci_probe+0x800/0x820 [ath11k_pci]
 local_pci_probe+0x40/0xbc

The warning is due to not clearing the affinity hint before freeing the
IRQs.

So to fix this issue, clear the IRQ affinity hint before calling
ath11k_pcic_free_irq() in the error path. The affinity will be cleared once
again further down the error path due to code organization, but that does
no harm.

Tested-on: QCA6390 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HST.1.0.1-05266-QCAHSTSWPLZ_V2_TO_X86-1

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-23129?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-23129?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-23129 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-23129 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-23129 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-23129 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 Apr 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-23129 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-23129/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-23129/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-23129
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-23129
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-23129

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-23129/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.