From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: linux-cve-announce@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@kernel.org>
Subject: CVE-2026-68191: wifi: ath12k: fix NULL pointer dereference in rhash table destroy
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:58:28 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <2026081009-CVE-2026-68191-dfa6@gregkh> (raw)
From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@kernel.org>
Description
===========
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: ath12k: fix NULL pointer dereference in rhash table destroy
When unbinding the ath12k driver, kernel NULL pointer dereferences
occur in irq_work_sync() called from rhashtable_destroy().
Two hash tables are affected:
1. ath12k_link_sta hash table in ath12k_base
2. ath12k_dp_link_peer hash table in ath12k_dp
The issue happens because the destroy functions are called unconditionally
in cleanup paths, but the hash tables are only initialized late in their
respective init functions. If the device was never fully started or if the
init functions failed before initializing the hash tables, the pointers
will be NULL. The issues are always reproducible from a VM because the MSI
addressing initialization is failing.
Call trace for ath12k_link_sta_rhash_tbl_destroy:
RIP: irq_work_sync+0x1e/0x70
rhashtable_destroy+0x12/0x60
ath12k_link_sta_rhash_tbl_destroy+0x19/0x40 [ath12k]
ath12k_core_stop+0xe/0x80 [ath12k]
ath12k_core_hw_group_cleanup+0x6b/0xb0 [ath12k]
ath12k_pci_remove+0x60/0x110 [ath12k]
Call trace for ath12k_dp_link_peer_rhash_tbl_destroy:
RIP: irq_work_sync+0x1e/0x70
rhashtable_destroy+0x12/0x60
ath12k_dp_link_peer_rhash_tbl_destroy+0x29/0x50 [ath12k]
ath12k_dp_cmn_device_deinit+0x21/0x140 [ath12k]
ath12k_core_hw_group_cleanup+0x6b/0xb0 [ath12k]
ath12k_pci_remove+0x60/0x110 [ath12k]
Fix this by adding NULL checks before calling rhashtable_destroy() in
both destroy functions.
The NULL check approach was chosen because the rhashtable pointer
serves as the initialization state indicator. The init can fail at
various points, leaving some components uninitialized. Checking the
pointer directly is simpler than adding separate state flags that
would need synchronization.
The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2026-68191 to this issue.
Affected and fixed versions
===========================
Issue introduced in 7.0 with commit 57ccca410237285f8f25a988655e6910cadc63f2 and fixed in 7.1.6 with commit 17a4298f7794843af0094035723dc5e7311c7453
Issue introduced in 7.0 with commit 57ccca410237285f8f25a988655e6910cadc63f2 and fixed in 7.2-rc5 with commit 70231dcd782201579990ded73e0435d18bb524ca
Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.
Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions. The official CVE entry at
https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2026-68191
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.
Affected files
==============
The file(s) affected by this issue are:
drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath12k/dp_peer.c
drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath12k/peer.c
Mitigation
==========
The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes. Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release. Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all. If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/17a4298f7794843af0094035723dc5e7311c7453
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/70231dcd782201579990ded73e0435d18bb524ca
reply other threads:[~2026-08-10 12:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: [no followups] expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=2026081009-CVE-2026-68191-dfa6@gregkh \
--to=gregkh@linuxfoundation.org \
--cc=cve@kernel.org \
--cc=gregkh@kernel.org \
--cc=linux-cve-announce@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.