CVE-2026-64175

wifi: iwlwifi: mld: stop TX during firmware restart

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: July 19, 2026 at 03:41 PM UTC
Updated: October 19, 2026 at 09:17 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.5%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: iwlwifi: mld: stop TX during firmware restart When iwlwifi firmware crashes (e.g., NMI_INTERRUPT_UNKNOWN on Intel BE201/Wi-Fi 7), iwl_mld_nic_error() sets mld->fw_status.in_hw_restart to true. However, iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() does not check this flag before dequeuing frames from mac80211 and pushing them to the transport layer. Since the firmware is dead, iwl_trans_tx() returns -EIO for each frame, which then gets freed immediately. Under high-throughput conditions (e.g., Tailscale UDP traffic or active SSH sessions), this creates a tight dequeue-send-fail-free loop that wastes CPU cycles and generates rapid skb allocation churn, leading to memory pressure from slab fragmentation. The RX path already has this guard (iwl_mld_rx_mpdu checks in_hw_restart at rx.c:1906), and so does the TXQ allocation worker (iwl_mld_add_txqs_wk at tx.c:156). Add the same guard to iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() to stop all TX during firmware restart. Frames left in mac80211's TXQs are naturally drained after restart completes, when queue reallocation triggers iwl_mld_tx_from_txq() via iwl_mld_add_txq_list(), or when new upper-layer traffic invokes wake_tx_queue. Tested on ASUS Zenbook 14 UX3405CA with Intel BE201 (Wi-Fi 7) on kernel 6.19.5 where the firmware crashes approximately every 10-15 minutes under Tailscale traffic.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

6.15 ≤ v < 6.18.346.19 ≤ v < 7.0.117.17.1 rc17.1 rc27.1 rc37.1 rc4d1e879ec600f9b3bdd253167533959facfefb17b
Vendor states this is fixed in 13f1786395dbbf3df73337063c798f1266be6151 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 2becb38a3e217ef2b2f42fddd7db7a25905ec291 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in dc31c69476520bb4c2a208211a8d3c310a62c4d0 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.15 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.34 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.0.11 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.1 (unaffected)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.5HIGHLinux
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
NVD-CWE-noinfoCWE-400

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