CVE-2026-23130 wifi: ath12k: fix dead lock while flushing management frames
A race condition in the ath12k WiFi driver causes a deadlock during management frame flushing, leading to a denial of service.
- 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-2026-23130?
CVE-2026-23130 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 14 Feb 2026. 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: ath12k: fix dead lock while flushing management frames
Commit [1] converted the management transmission work item into a wiphy work. Since a wiphy work can only run under wiphy lock protection, a race condition happens in below scenario:
1. a management frame is queued for transmission. 2. ath12k_mac_op_flush() gets called to flush pending frames associated with the hardware (i.e, vif being NULL). Then in ath12k_mac_flush() the process waits for the transmission done. 3. Since wiphy lock has been taken by the flush process, the transmission work item has no chance to run, hence the dead lock.
>From user view, this dead lock results in below issue:
wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx) wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx) wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: authenticated wlp8s0: associate with xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: aborting association with xxxxxx by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING) ath12k_pci 0000:08:00.0: failed to flush mgmt transmit queue, mgmt pkts pending 1
The dead lock can be avoided by invoking wiphy_work_flush() to proactively run the queued work item. Note actually it is already present in ath12k_mac_op_flush(), however it does not protect the case where vif being NULL. Hence move it ahead to cover this case as well.
Tested-on: WCN7850 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HMT.1.1.c5-00302-QCAHMTSWPL_V1.0_V2.0_SILICONZ-1.115823.3
Weakness: CWE-667
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23130?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-23130?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-23130 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23130 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23130, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23130, GHSA-6mvr-5ch7-jjjq, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23130.