CVE-2025-38644 wifi: mac80211: reject TDLS operations when station is not associated
A local attacker can trigger a kernel warning and potential denial of service by sending malformed Wi-Fi TDLS commands before association completes.
- 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
What is CVE-2025-38644?
CVE-2025-38644 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 22 Aug 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: reject TDLS operations when station is not associated
syzbot triggered a WARN in ieee80211_tdls_oper() by sending NL80211_TDLS_ENABLE_LINK immediately after NL80211_CMD_CONNECT, before association completed and without prior TDLS setup.
This left internal state like sdata->u.mgd.tdls_peer uninitialized, leading to a WARN_ON() in code paths that assumed it was valid.
Reject the operation early if not in station mode or not associated.
Weakness: CWE-908
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38644?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38644?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38644 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38644 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as AZL-66581, AZL-73491, BELL-CVE-2025-38644, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38644, GHSA-fcrc-8j6j-jr4g, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38644 and 5 more.