published October 18, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: mac80211: keep paired old chanctx alive
An in-place replacement keeps reciprocal replace_ctx pointers between
the old WILL_BE_REPLACED chanctx and the new REPLACES_OTHER chanctx.
However, the early free paths only consider assigned and reserved link
users when deciding whether to free the old chanctx.
That lets the old chanctx be freed too early while the replacement
partner still points back to it, either when the last assigned link is
released or when that link successfully reassigns to another existing
context. Later unreserve and switch-finalization paths can then follow a
stale replace_ctx pointer.
Keep a paired old chanctx alive until the replacement pair has been torn
down. Apply the same check to both __ieee80211_link_release_channel()
and ieee80211_link_use_reserved_reassign(). If the replacement is later
abandoned, ieee80211_link_unreserve_chanctx() already tears down the
pairing before freeing the old chanctx once no users remain.