CVE-2026-97511 wifi: mac80211: avoid out-of-bounds access in monitor
An out-of-bounds access in the Linux kernel WiFi monitor mode allows attackers to cause denial of service or potentially execute code.
- 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-2026-97511?
CVE-2026-97511 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 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: mac80211: avoid out-of-bounds access in monitor
In NAN, we don't know on what band the frame will be sent. Therefore we set info->band to NUM_NL80211_BANDS. However, this leads to out-of-bound access in ieee80211_add_tx_radiotap_header when we try to access the sbands array.
Fix it by not accessing the array if the band is NUM_NL80211_BANDS. This means that we will not report rate info for legacy rate in NAN. But nobody really cares about it.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-97511?
How do I fix CVE-2026-97511?
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-2026-97511 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-97511 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-103715, BELL-CVE-2026-97511, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97511, GHSA-c7mv-6q5h-g377, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97511.