CVE-2026-98828 wifi: ath9k: reject short WMI command responses
A flaw in the ath9k Wi-Fi driver allows out-of-bounds reads from short WMI responses, potentially leaking memory or causing crashes.
- 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-2026-98828?
CVE-2026-98828 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 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: ath9k: reject short WMI command responses
ath9k_wmi_rsp_callback() removes the validated WMI header and copies the number of bytes expected by the waiting command into its response buffer. A device response shorter than that expectation can therefore be read beyond the skb payload.
Record -EMSGSIZE for a short response, complete the waiter, and return the stored status from the command path. This also prevents callers from consuming stale response bytes as a successful reply.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98828?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98828?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-98828 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98828 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-109304, BELL-CVE-2026-98828, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98828, GHSA-hwh7-fwf3-88qj, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98828.