[CVE-2026-93797][MODERATE REGULAR] wifi: iwlwifi: mvm: fix an off-by-1 boundary check [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-93797
Priority: MODERATE REGULAR
AL-KERNEL base severity: MODERATE
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: iwlwifi: mvm: fix an off-by-1 boundary check [ Upstream
Commit: 1e3b72c9b63288a5f204e2c8f38eae01515d7dc5
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=1e3b72c9b63288a5f204e2c8f38eae01515d7dc5
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-93797
Analysis date: Thu, 24 Sep 2026 19:47:32 -0400
ActionableScore: 2
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
No one-sentence report phrase was found.

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ABOUT THIS REPORT
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-93797 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-93797

The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity
estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the
reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines
an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a
separate ActionableScore mechanism.

The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before
manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and
support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful
security impact.

Published priority for this report: MODERATE REGULAR
Manual review required: NO

A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included
at the end of this message.

======================================================================
AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT
======================================================================

CVE-2026-93797	MODERATE	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-93797 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L';CWE-125;CWE-193;*CWE-20;Other CVSS 'AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N';BEST CVSS score: '5.4';DESCR 'An off by one boundary check in the Intel iwlwifi driver allows iwl_mvm_check_he_obss_narrow_bw_ru_iter to read elem data byte 10 when the Extended Capabilities element contains only 10 bytes. A nearby wireless attacker or rogue access point may be able to provide a malformed management frame with this truncated information element. For the CVSS the PR:N metric is used because no local account or local code execution is required once the attacker is within wireless range. The issue is network adjacent rather than Internet reachable. The patch context demonstrates a one byte out of bounds read but does not demonstrate an out of bounds write, use after free, reliable information disclosure, or privilege escalation. Base impact is therefore not confirmed. For the paranoid score limited confidentiality or availability impact is retained as a defensible worst case for an out of bounds read and this issue should be reviewed manually.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 2)	YES	REMOTE SIMPLEFIX NETWORK  DECREASED_TO_MODERATEREG_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN4	NO	NO	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
======================================================================

ActionableScore=2
PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C
RealUAF=NO
HostAdminRequired=NO
NamespaceScopedPrivilege=NO
ImportantCandidate=NO
ManualReview=RECOMMENDED
AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 2
* Conservative score: 2
* Raw paranoid score: 2
* Paranoid score: 2
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::

2. Signal breakdown

* +2 Directly network-triggerable, network-adjacent: A nearby WiFi attacker or rogue access point can plausibly provide a malformed Extended Capabilities information element to a system using the affected iwlwifi path. This is AV:A style exposure, not Internet-reachable AV:N exposure.
* +0 Limited out-of-bounds read: The code reads `elem->data[10]` when `elem->datalen == 10`. This is a one-byte out-of-bounds read caused by an off-by-one validation error.
* +0 No demonstrated confidentiality impact: The patch does not show that the out-of-bounds byte is copied to userspace, transmitted to the attacker, logged, or otherwise exposed.
* +0 No demonstrated integrity impact: The vulnerable operation is a read only byte access. No out-of-bounds write, object replacement, refcount corruption, or attacker-controlled kernel state modification is established.
* +0 No demonstrated crash: An out-of-bounds read can theoretically fault in unusual allocation or boundary conditions, but the supplied patch does not establish a reliable kernel crash path.
* +0 No privilege escalation or controlled corruption: There is no UAF, arbitrary write, controlled reclaim, type confusion, callback influence, or security-boundary bypass.
* No host-admin penalty applied: Host-admin privilege is not required for the attacker because the malformed management-frame input can originate from a nearby wireless peer.
* No rare-subsystem penalty applied: iwlwifi is a normal driver for supported Intel wireless adapters. The affected HE capability path is feature-dependent, but the evidence does not establish a rare or inaccessible configuration.

3. Reachability analysis

The evaluated attacker is a nearby wireless attacker, such as a rogue access point or another device within WiFi radio range. The attacker can potentially supply malformed 802.11 management-frame information elements without local code execution or host administrative privileges.

The vulnerable input is parsed by the Intel iwlwifi driver and is not directly reachable from the public Internet. It requires a victim system with a supported Intel WiFi adapter, the iwlwifi driver, and wireless interaction with attacker-controlled or attacker-influenced management traffic.

Namespace capabilities are not relevant to the trigger. The complete trigger does not require network namespace creation, CAP_NET_ADMIN, host root, a privileged control-plane operation, special device management, or prior host-admin setup.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact primitive is a one-byte out-of-bounds read from an Extended Capabilities information element. The pre-fix validation accepts `datalen == 10`, but the subsequent access reads byte index 10, which requires a length of at least 11 bytes.

This is neither an active-object lifetime bug nor fixed stale storage. There is no UAF, no release/refcount operation, no stale structured-object use, no cleanup-path double release, and no attacker-controlled post-free reuse.

The patch establishes an input-validation failure and a limited invalid read. It does not establish a user-visible information disclosure, a controlled kernel read primitive, a kernel crash, an out-of-bounds write, memory corruption, or privilege escalation. The demonstrated consequence is therefore limited to malformed-input handling with a one-byte invalid access.

PrimitiveClass is CLASS_C because the established condition is an invalid out-of-bounds access without an independently useful corruption primitive. ImportantCandidate is NO because there is no meaningful unresolved exploitation leverage beyond the limited invalid read. AutoDowngradeAllowed is YES because no concrete memory-corruption, lifetime, authorization, ownership, or boundary-bypass primitive remains unresolved.

Likely operational severity is low to ordinary moderate. The network-adjacent origin justifies review of deployment exposure, but the patch alone does not support Important-class treatment.

5. One-sentence report phrase

A nearby WiFi attacker may trigger a one-byte out-of-bounds read in the Intel iwlwifi driver by supplying a truncated Extended Capabilities information element, but the patch does not establish information disclosure, memory corruption, privilege escalation, or a reliable denial of service.

6. Manual review recommendation

MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED

The bug is externally reachable over WiFi radio range and affects kernel packet parsing, but the supplied evidence establishes only a limited read-only off-by-one access with no demonstrated disclosure, crash, write primitive, or privilege-escalation path.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: medium

======================================================================
UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================

Patch: wifi: iwlwifi: mvm: fix an off-by-1 boundary check [ Upstream
Commit: 1e3b72c9b63288a5f204e2c8f38eae01515d7dc5
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=1e3b72c9b63288a5f204e2c8f38eae01515d7dc5

Changed files:
  drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/mvm/mac80211.c

Diff excerpt:

Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch.

Full patch:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=1e3b72c9b63288a5f204e2c8f38eae01515d7dc5

======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-93797 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-93797

The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level
estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact
level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a
practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list
is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information.

The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel
CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help
identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin.

The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional
LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is
based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms
produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness
types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore.

Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability
information often permits more than one defensible interpretation:

  Conservative CVSS vector: AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.4

The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation.
The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound
interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated
real-world impact.

CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment,
because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration,
hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental
conditions can differ significantly between systems.

A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation
urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites,
subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service
reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or
privilege-escalation impact.

  Conservative ActionableScore: unknown
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 2

The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated
field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not
replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and
if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see
self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7.

For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following
additional presentation split:

  ActionableScore below 5   -> MODERATE REGULAR
  ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0

The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it
possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis
and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases,
MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update.

There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0
even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result
contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as
MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without
usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens
and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage).

KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly
serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification
workflow.

AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: MODERATE
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): MODERATE REGULAR

These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are
machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should
be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition.
For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/
(and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report
for non-existant CVE-id yet).

Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than
real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or
Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases,
please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses
info to this particular CVE.
And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants
or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I
need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar).
My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).