CVE-2026-98192 wifi: wcn36xx: Fix potential use-after-free in TX ack timer teardown
A use-after-free in the wcn36xx WiFi driver allows attackers to cause denial of service or execute code via race conditions during timer teardown.
- 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-2026-98192?
CVE-2026-98192 is an use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 6 Oct 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: wcn36xx: Fix potential use-after-free in TX ack timer teardown
wcn36xx_dxe_deinit() tears down the TX ack timer with timer_delete(), which only dequeues the timer and does not wait for a callback that is already executing; the preceding free_irq() calls synchronize the interrupt handlers only. The callback, wcn36xx_dxe_tx_timer(), can therefore be running past the teardown and use the wcn freed along with the ieee80211_hw in wcn36xx_remove(): it takes wcn->dxe_lock, reads wcn->tx_ack_skb and passes wcn->hw to ieee80211_tx_status_irqsafe().
Fix this by using timer_shutdown_sync(), which waits for a running callback and also prevents the timer from being rearmed again. The timer is set up again by wcn36xx_dxe_init() on the next start, so the start/stop cycle is unaffected.
This issue was found by an in-house static analysis tool.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98192?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98192?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2026-98192 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98192 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-106218, BELL-CVE-2026-98192, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98192, GHSA-hrqp-97p2-7mmr, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98192.