# CVE-2026-98307: wifi: ath11k: cleanup arsta in ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all()

> A memory leak in the ath11k WiFi driver can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service when firmware crashes occur.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 6 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-106227, BELL-CVE-2026-98307, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98307, GHSA-79xr-q5vm-65jg, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98307

## What is CVE-2026-98307?

CVE-2026-98307 is a memory corruption 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: ath11k: cleanup arsta in ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all()

When mac80211 removes a sta, it calls .sta_state() which in turn calls
ath11k_mac_station_remove(). In that function we clean up both peers &
arsta related resources.

But when the firmware crashes, ath11k calls ieee80211_restart_hw(), which
assumes that all driver related resources are cleaned up beforehand. This
cleanup is supposedly done by ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all() but does not
in fact free arsta->rx_stats / tx_stats.

Extract the arsta cleanup from ath11k_mac_station_remove() into a
new ath11k_mac_station_cleanup() and call it from both there and
ath11k_mac_peer_cleanup_all().

This should handle kmemleaks reports like:
	unreferenced object 0xffffff801ae66400 (size 1024):
	  comm "hostapd", pid 1306, jiffies 4295011565
	  hex dump (first 32 bytes):
	    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
	    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
	  backtrace (crc d61c08ec):
	    kmemleak_alloc+0x3c/0x50
	    __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x2b0/0x3e0
	    ath11k_mac_op_sta_state+0x1dc/0xb10
	    drv_sta_state+0xac/0x6f8
	    sta_info_insert_rcu+0x314/0x5e0
	    sta_info_insert+0x14/0x38
	    ieee80211_add_station+0x10c/0x1a0
	    nl80211_new_station+0x3e8/0x680
	    genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0xc0/0x120
	    genl_rcv_msg+0x1b4/0x258
	    netlink_rcv_skb+0x4c/0x108
	    genl_rcv+0x38/0x60
	    netlink_unicast+0x190/0x278
	    netlink_sendmsg+0x15c/0x370
	    ____sys_sendmsg+0x120/0x290
	    ___sys_sendmsg+0x70/0xa0

Tested-on: QCN9074 hw1.0 PCI WLAN.HK.2.9.0.1-01977-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98307?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-98307?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-98307 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98307 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-98307 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-98307 is a memory corruption 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98307 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98307/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98307/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98307
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98307
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98307

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98307/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.