CVE-2026-74648 staging: rtl8723bs: validate monitor transmit frame lengths
A missing length validation in the rtl8723bs Wi-Fi driver allows out-of-bounds reads, potentially causing crashes or information disclosure.
- 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-2026-74648?
CVE-2026-74648 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 22 Aug 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:
staging: rtl8723bs: validate monitor transmit frame lengths
rtw_cfg80211_monitor_if_xmit_entry() removes the radiotap header and then reads the 802.11 frame control field without checking that a base 802.11 header remains.
The data path also pulls the calculated 802.11, QoS and SNAP header span before confirming that the skb contains it. A truncated frame can therefore cause out-of-bounds reads or leave insufficient data for the Ethernet address writes.
Reject frames that do not contain the base 802.11 header and data frames that do not contain their complete calculated header span.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-74648?
How do I fix CVE-2026-74648?
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-2026-74648 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-74648 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-74648, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-74648, GHSA-m738-m8ph-wwcp, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-74648.