CVE-2026-31604 wifi: rtw88: fix device leak on probe failure
A memory leak in the rtw88 Wi-Fi driver during probe failure can lead to resource exhaustion and 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-2026-31604?
CVE-2026-31604 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 24 Apr 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: rtw88: fix device leak on probe failure
Driver core holds a reference to the USB interface and its parent USB device while the interface is bound to a driver and there is no need to take additional references unless the structures are needed after disconnect.
This driver takes a reference to the USB device during probe but does not to release it on all probe errors (e.g. when descriptor parsing fails).
Drop the redundant device reference to fix the leak, reduce cargo culting, make it easier to spot drivers where an extra reference is needed, and reduce the risk of further memory leaks.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-31604?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-31604?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-31604 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-31604 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as AZL-84029, BELL-CVE-2026-31604, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-31604, GHSA-jcj3-vp6r-4j69, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-31604, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2026-31604 and 3 more.