CVE-2026-90346 wifi: nl80211: clean up color-change beacon data on errors
A memory leak in the Linux kernel Wi-Fi subsystem allows local attackers to cause denial of service by triggering error paths in beacon parsing.
- 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-2026-90346?
CVE-2026-90346 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 17 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: nl80211: clean up color-change beacon data on errors
nl80211_color_change() calls nl80211_parse_beacon() for the beacon_next template, which can allocate params.beacon_next.mbssid_ies and .rnr_ies. A parsing failure returned directly instead of using the out: cleanup, leaking any allocations completed before the error.
Allocate the nested attribute table before parsing beacon_next. Its allocation failure can then return before beacon data exists, while a later parsing failure uses out: to release the parsed data.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-90346?
How do I fix CVE-2026-90346?
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-2026-90346 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-90346 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-102671, BELL-CVE-2026-90346, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90346, GHSA-w736-9wgf-6j7c, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90346.