[CVE-2026-98332][LOW] wifi: mac80211: only operate on TDLS peers in the TDLS code [ Upstream

[CVE-2026-98332][LOW] wifi: mac80211: only operate on TDLS peers in the TDLS code [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-98332
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: mac80211: only operate on TDLS peers in the TDLS code [ Upstream
Commit: 0cd452ccaa5c5971440256ce72c64611eca176c1
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=0cd452ccaa5c5971440256ce72c64611eca176c1
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98332
Analysis date: Fri, 09 Oct 2026 05:56:15 -0400
ActionableScore: 2
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
No one-sentence report phrase was found.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98332 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98332

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: LOW
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-2026-98332	LOW	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-98332 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN LOW | AEGIS IMPACT LOW AEGIS_AS=0 LEGACY=LOW RESULT=SAME (legacy and Aegis reconciliation agree; DECISION: both LOW)	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-20;CWE-1287;CWE-754;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '5.5';DESCR 'mac80211 TDLS operations could act on the associated AP station because ieee80211_tdls_oper did not verify that the selected station was actually a TDLS peer for every operation. This could confuse AP station state and produce warnings when the station was removed immediately or later, with possible disruption of the active WiFi connection. For the CVSS the PR:L value is used because triggering requires local access to the nl80211 control plane with CAP_NET_ADMIN or an equivalent delegated network management capability. The issue is not directly reachable through remote WiFi traffic because a remote peer cannot invoke the local TDLS operation interface. The demonstrated impact is limited to warnings and availability degradation. No concrete UAF, OOB access, information disclosure, or arbitrary write primitive is established by the supplied code. The paranoid assessment allows A:H only for a reliably induced loss of WiFi service and does not raise confidentiality or integrity impact.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 2)	MAYBE	REMOTE LOCK DANGER SIMPLEFIX SYZBOT PACKET  DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS_AND_CIANNH DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3	-	-	checked

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

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

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 2
* Conservative score: 2
* Raw paranoid score: 2
* Paranoid score: 2
* No floor or cap was applied.
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::

2. Signal breakdown

* +1 Weak indirect corruption candidate. A TDLS operation can select an ordinary AP station and apply incompatible TDLS state operations to it.
* +1 Availability impact. Confusing or removing the active AP station can disrupt the current WiFi connection, although host-wide failure is not established.
* +0 WARN evidence. The commit reports warnings but does not establish a kernel panic or reliable host-wide DoS.
* +0 B5-R. No heap or slab OOB write, retry-accumulated index, or later consumption of OOB-corrupted state is established.
* +0 UAF. The patch does not establish access after the lifetime of `sta_info` ended. Warnings during immediate or later AP removal are insufficient to prove stale post-lifetime use.
* +0 Strong or structured exploitation leverage. The selected AP station is active, not a demonstrated reclaimed or attacker-shaped replacement object.
* +0 Confidentiality and integrity. No disclosure, unauthorized protected-state modification, arbitrary write, or security-boundary bypass is demonstrated.
* +0 Remote reachability. Remote WiFi traffic does not directly invoke the local nl80211 TDLS control operation.
* No privilege penalty was applied because the complete capability scope and whether host-admin-equivalent control is required are not resolved by the supplied patch.
* No additional paranoid point was awarded. Raising availability to host-wide A:H or inferring memory corruption would require evidence absent from the patch.

3. Reachability analysis

The trigger is a local nl80211 TDLS management operation using the MAC address of the associated AP instead of a TDLS peer. Such operations normally involve `CAP_NET_ADMIN` or a network-management service, but the supplied evidence does not establish whether the complete operation is available through an attacker-created namespace or requires control of a host-owned physical wireless interface.

Accordingly, `HostAdminRequired` and `NamespaceScopedPrivilege` remain `UNKNOWN`. Ordinary unprivileged access is not established. No remote packet-only trigger is shown. A configured mac80211 wireless connection with an AP station is required, but no unusual hardware is indicated. This is a logical validation defect rather than a timing race, so no race penalty applies.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact primitive is incorrect object selection: TDLS code can operate on an active non-TDLS AP station because peer-type validation was missing from common TDLS operation paths.

This is not a stale-storage or active-object UAF. No first lifetime-ending operation followed by use of the same dangling reference is shown. No repeated release, refcount mutation, OOB access, controlled reclaim, or callback consumption is established.

The demonstrated behavior is invalid station state followed by warnings during immediate or later AP removal. Connection disruption is plausible and consistent with device-local availability impact. Kernel memory corruption, host-wide panic, privilege escalation, and confidentiality impact remain speculative and are not scored.

`PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C` because the evidence supports invalid-state and availability behavior without an independently useful corruption primitive. `ImportantCandidate=NO` and `AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES` because no unresolved Class A or Class B primitive remains.

5. One-sentence report phrase

Missing TDLS peer validation allowed local nl80211 control operations to treat the associated AP station as a TDLS peer, potentially producing warnings and disrupting the active WiFi connection without establishing memory corruption or remote reachability.

6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

The supplied patch establishes a bounded peer-type validation error with warning and device-local availability consequences, while the proposed B5-R heap OOB profile is unsupported.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: medium

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

Patch: wifi: mac80211: only operate on TDLS peers in the TDLS code [ Upstream
Commit: 0cd452ccaa5c5971440256ce72c64611eca176c1
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=0cd452ccaa5c5971440256ce72c64611eca176c1

Changed files:
  net/mac80211/tdls.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=0cd452ccaa5c5971440256ce72c64611eca176c1

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98332 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98332

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:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.5

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: LOW
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW

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).