CVE-2026-80940 wifi: rtw88: pci: fix resource leak on failed NAPI setup
A resource leak in the rtw88 PCI driver during failed NAPI setup can lead to memory exhaustion and denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-80940?
CVE-2026-80940 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 11 Sep 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: pci: fix resource leak on failed NAPI setup
rtw_pci_probe() allocates PCI resources through rtw_pci_setup_resource() before it sets up NAPI. If rtw_pci_napi_init() fails, the error path jumps straight to err_pci_declaim and skips rtw_pci_destroy(), leaving the PCI resources allocated by rtw_pci_setup_resource() behind.
Add a dedicated cleanup label for the NAPI setup failure path so probe destroys the PCI resources.
The bug was first flagged by an experimental analysis tool we are developing for kernel memory-management bugs while analyzing current mainline kernels. The tool is still under development and is not yet publicly available. Manual inspection confirms that the bug is still present in v7.1-rc7.
An x86_64 allyesconfig build showed no new warnings. As we do not have a suitable rtw88 PCI board to test with, no runtime testing was able to be performed.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-80940?
How do I fix CVE-2026-80940?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-80940 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-80940 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-80940, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-80940, GHSA-82xc-pjrp-m39r, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80940.