# CVE-2025-37794: wifi: mac80211: Purge vif txq in ieee80211_do_stop()

> A race condition in the Linux kernel Wi-Fi subsystem causes a null pointer dereference, leading to a system crash when stopping a virtual interface.

- **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:** 1 May 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-37794, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-37794, GHSA-mrf4-wfh4-qj5w, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-37794, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-37794, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-37794, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-37794

## What is CVE-2025-37794?

CVE-2025-37794 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 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: mac80211: Purge vif txq in ieee80211_do_stop()

After ieee80211_do_stop() SKB from vif's txq could still be processed.
Indeed another concurrent vif schedule_and_wake_txq call could cause
those packets to be dequeued (see ieee80211_handle_wake_tx_queue())
without checking the sdata current state.

Because vif.drv_priv is now cleared in this function, this could lead to
driver crash.

For example in ath12k, ahvif is store in vif.drv_priv. Thus if
ath12k_mac_op_tx() is called after ieee80211_do_stop(), ahvif->ah can be
NULL, leading the ath12k_warn(ahvif->ah,...) call in this function to
trigger the NULL deref below.

  Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address dfffffc000000001
  KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000008-0x000000000000000f]
  batman_adv: bat0: Interface deactivated: brbh1337
  Mem abort info:
    ESR = 0x0000000096000004
    EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits
    SET = 0, FnV = 0
    EA = 0, S1PTW = 0
    FSC = 0x04: level 0 translation fault
  Data abort info:
    ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000004, ISS2 = 0x00000000
    CM = 0, WnR = 0, TnD = 0, TagAccess = 0
    GCS = 0, Overlay = 0, DirtyBit = 0, Xs = 0
  [dfffffc000000001] address between user and kernel address ranges
  Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000004 [#1] SMP
  CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 978 Comm: lbd Not tainted 6.13.0-g633f875b8f1e #114
  Hardware name: HW (DT)
  pstate: 10000005 (nzcV daif -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
  pc : ath12k_mac_op_tx+0x6cc/0x29b8 [ath12k]
  lr : ath12k_mac_op_tx+0x174/0x29b8 [ath12k]
  sp : ffffffc086ace450
  x29: ffffffc086ace450 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 1ffffff810d59ca4
  x26: ffffff801d05f7c0 x25: 0000000000000000 x24: 000000004000001e
  x23: ffffff8009ce4926 x22: ffffff801f9c0800 x21: ffffff801d05f7f0
  x20: ffffff8034a19f40 x19: 0000000000000000 x18: ffffff801f9c0958
  x17: ffffff800bc0a504 x16: dfffffc000000000 x15: ffffffc086ace4f8
  x14: ffffff801d05f83c x13: 0000000000000000 x12: ffffffb003a0bf03
  x11: 0000000000000000 x10: ffffffb003a0bf02 x9 : ffffff8034a19f40
  x8 : ffffff801d05f818 x7 : 1ffffff0069433dc x6 : ffffff8034a19ee0
  x5 : ffffff801d05f7f0 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : 0000000000000001
  x2 : 0000000000000000 x1 : dfffffc000000000 x0 : 0000000000000008
  Call trace:
   ath12k_mac_op_tx+0x6cc/0x29b8 [ath12k] (P)
   ieee80211_handle_wake_tx_queue+0x16c/0x260
   ieee80211_queue_skb+0xeec/0x1d20
   ieee80211_tx+0x200/0x2c8
   ieee80211_xmit+0x22c/0x338
   __ieee80211_subif_start_xmit+0x7e8/0xc60
   ieee80211_subif_start_xmit+0xc4/0xee0
   __ieee80211_subif_start_xmit_8023.isra.0+0x854/0x17a0
   ieee80211_subif_start_xmit_8023+0x124/0x488
   dev_hard_start_xmit+0x160/0x5a8
   __dev_queue_xmit+0x6f8/0x3120
   br_dev_queue_push_xmit+0x120/0x4a8
   __br_forward+0xe4/0x2b0
   deliver_clone+0x5c/0xd0
   br_flood+0x398/0x580
   br_dev_xmit+0x454/0x9f8
   dev_hard_start_xmit+0x160/0x5a8
   __dev_queue_xmit+0x6f8/0x3120
   ip6_finish_output2+0xc28/0x1b60
   __ip6_finish_output+0x38c/0x638
   ip6_output+0x1b4/0x338
   ip6_local_out+0x7c/0xa8
   ip6_send_skb+0x7c/0x1b0
   ip6_push_pending_frames+0x94/0xd0
   rawv6_sendmsg+0x1a98/0x2898
   inet_sendmsg+0x94/0xe0
   __sys_sendto+0x1e4/0x308
   __arm64_sys_sendto+0xc4/0x140
   do_el0_svc+0x110/0x280
   el0_svc+0x20/0x60
   el0t_64_sync_handler+0x104/0x138
   el0t_64_sync+0x154/0x158

To avoid that, empty vif's txq at ieee80211_do_stop() so no packet could
be dequeued after ieee80211_do_stop() (new packets cannot be queued
because SDATA_STATE_RUNNING is cleared at this point).

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-37794?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-37794?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-37794 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-37794 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-2025-37794 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-37794 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 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-2025-37794 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-2025-37794/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37794/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-37794
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-37794
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-37794

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37794/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.