# CVE-2025-39746: wifi: ath10k: shutdown driver when hardware is unreliable

> A flaw in the ath10k WiFi driver causes system crashes when hardware becomes unreliable, requiring a patch to prevent 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:** 11 Sep 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-67190, AZL-70813, BELL-CVE-2025-39746, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-39746, GHSA-jchh-jmm7-xg67, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-39746, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-39746, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-39746, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-39746, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-39746

## What is CVE-2025-39746?

CVE-2025-39746 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 11 Sep 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: ath10k: shutdown driver when hardware is unreliable

In rare cases, ath10k may lose connection with the PCIe bus due to
some unknown reasons, which could further lead to system crashes during
resuming due to watchdog timeout:

ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: wmi command 20486 timeout, restarting hardware
ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: already restarting
ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: failed to stop WMI vdev 0: -11
ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: failed to stop vdev 0: -11
ieee80211 phy0: PM: **** DPM device timeout ****
Call Trace:
 panic+0x125/0x315
 dpm_watchdog_set+0x54/0x54
 dpm_watchdog_handler+0x57/0x57
 call_timer_fn+0x31/0x13c

At this point, all WMI commands will timeout and attempt to restart
device. So set a threshold for consecutive restart failures. If the
threshold is exceeded, consider the hardware is unreliable and all
ath10k operations should be skipped to avoid system crash.

fail_cont_count and pending_recovery are atomic variables, and
do not involve complex conditional logic. Therefore, even if recovery
check and reconfig complete are executed concurrently, the recovery
mechanism will not be broken.

Tested-on: QCA6174 hw3.2 PCI WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00288-QCARMSWPZ-1

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-39746?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-39746?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-39746 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-39746 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-2025-39746 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-39746 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 11 Sep 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-2025-39746 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-2025-39746/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39746/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-39746
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-39746
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-39746

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39746/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.