CVE-2026-23130

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: ath12k: fix dead lock while flushing management frames

Commit [1] converted the management transmission work item into a wiphy work. Since a wiphy work can only run under wiphy lock protection, a race condition happens in below scenario:

1. a management frame is queued for transmission.
2. ath12k_mac_op_flush() gets called to flush pending frames associated with the hardware (i.e, vif being NULL). Then in ath12k_mac_flush() the process waits for the transmission done.
3. Since wiphy lock has been taken by the flush process, the transmission work item has no chance to run, hence the dead lock.

From user view, this dead lock results in below issue:

wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx) wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx) wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: authenticated wlp8s0: associate with xxxxxx (try 1/3) wlp8s0: aborting association with xxxxxx by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING) ath12k_pci 0000:08:00.0: failed to flush mgmt transmit queue, mgmt pkts pending 1

The dead lock can be avoided by invoking wiphy_work_flush() to proactively run the queued work item. Note actually it is already present in ath12k_mac_op_flush(), however it does not protect the case where vif being NULL. Hence move it ahead to cover this case as well.

Tested-on: WCN7850 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HMT.1.1.c5-00302-QCAHMTSWPL_V1.0_V2.0_SILICONZ-1.115823.3

Weakness

The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors.

Affected Software

Extended Description

Locking is a type of synchronization behavior that ensures that multiple independently-operating processes or threads do not interfere with each other when accessing the same resource. All processes/threads are expected to follow the same steps for locking. If these steps are not followed precisely - or if no locking is done at all - then another process/thread could modify the shared resource in a way that is not visible or predictable to the original process. This can lead to data or memory corruption, denial of service, etc.

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/25.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/27.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/06ac2aa13f701a0296e92f5f54ae24224d426b28
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f88e9fc30a261d63946ddc6cc6a33405e6aa27c3