CVE-2026-98338 wifi: cfg80211: ibss: ref BSS entry for joined event
A race condition in the Linux kernel WiFi subsystem can cause a kernel warning and potential denial of service when joining an IBSS network.
- 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-2026-98338?
CVE-2026-98338 is a 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: cfg80211: ibss: ref BSS entry for joined event
When the IBSS is joined, we only record the BSSID/channel in the event and look up the BSS entry when processing it. However, that's racy, e.g. a new scan with NL80211_SCAN_FLAG_FLUSH can remove it, causing a warning in the event work:
!bss WARNING: net/wireless/ibss.c:37 at __cfg80211_ibss_joined+0x3d3/0x440 Workqueue: cfg80211 cfg80211_event_work cfg80211_process_wdev_events+0x39f/0x5b0 net/wireless/util.c:1144 cfg80211_process_rdev_events+0xa1/0x110 net/wireless/util.c:1179 cfg80211_event_work+0x2f/0x40 net/wireless/core.c:393
Do the lookup early (the driver is expected to only join an IBSS that has a BSS entry) and keep a reference to it.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98338?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98338?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-98338 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98338 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-106257, BELL-CVE-2026-98338, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98338, GHSA-jgrq-7mcg-mjwv, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98338.