[CVE-2026-98337][LOW] wifi: mac80211: don't start a ROC while scanning [ Upstream

[CVE-2026-98337][LOW] wifi: mac80211: don't start a ROC while scanning [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-98337
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: mac80211: don't start a ROC while scanning [ Upstream
Commit: 5dc8ec2f8d1d62914661577c23ec151f5c9734a4
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=5dc8ec2f8d1d62914661577c23ec151f5c9734a4
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98337
Analysis date: Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:19:57 -0400
ActionableScore: 0
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-2026-98337 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98337

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-2026-98337	LOW	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-98337 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE | 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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';CWE-362;CWE-667;CWE-754;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.7';DESCR 'A state race in mac80211 can allow pending remain on channel work to start after a wireless scan has already begun. The conflicting scan and ROC state reaches a warning in ieee80211_start_next_roc and may disrupt wireless operation. On systems configured to panic on warnings, the same condition can cause a kernel crash and system wide denial of service. For the CVSS the PR:L value is used because reliable triggering requires a local process with access to wireless control operations, such as a network management service or an account with delegated network administration capability. The race also requires a specific timing window, therefore AC:H is appropriate. The issue is not directly network reachable through ordinary WiFi traffic. No memory corruption, information disclosure, or privilege escalation primitive is supported by the affected code path.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 0)	MAYBE	REMOTE DANGER SIMPLEFIX SYZBOT DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS_AND_CIANNH DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3 KPANIC_UNSUPPORTED_REMOVED	-	-	checked

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

ActionableScore=0
PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C
RealUAF=NO
HostAdminRequired=UNKNOWN
NamespaceScopedPrivilege=UNKNOWN
ImportantCandidate=NO
ManualReview=NO
AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES
RequiresHostUID0=UNKNOWN
AuthorizationDecisionBypass=NO
ProtectedResourceImpact=NONE
B4PendingReview=NO
B4PendingConfirmed=NO

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 0
* Conservative score: 0
* Raw paranoid score: 0
* Paranoid score: 0
* No floor or cap was applied.
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::

2. Signal breakdown

* +0 WARN_ON and invalid operational state. The demonstrated result is a warning after ROC work starts during scanning. WARN_ON alone receives no crash point.
* +0 race condition. The ordering conflict is established, but no UAF, OOB access, overwrite, refcount corruption, or other independent corruption primitive is shown.
* +0 paranoid availability. A panic_on_warn configuration could turn the warning into a crash, but the supplied evidence does not demonstrate a fatal result and the scoring rules prohibit promoting WARN_ON alone.
* No race penalty was applied. The patch establishes an ordering window but does not show that it is narrow, one-shot, or materially difficult to repeat.
* No privilege penalty was applied. The complete permission requirements for initiating both scan and ROC operations are not established.
* Remote reachability is not established. Ordinary wireless traffic does not directly control the required local scan and ROC work sequence.
* NEW52 B5-R does not apply because there is no heap OOB write, retry-accumulated offset, or later consumption of corrupted structured state.
* NEW53 B3-PENDING does not apply because there is no shared-backing write.
* NEW54 B4-PENDING does not apply because no authorization guard or DENY-to-ALLOW transition is involved.
* Controlled reclaim, arbitrary write, disclosure, privilege escalation, and security-boundary bypass are not demonstrated.
* No extra Availability point was awarded because no distinct persistent or host-wide availability consequence is established.
* No repeated release/refcount signal exists. There is no first lifetime-ending release, surviving dangling reference, or second lifetime mutation. FLOOR 5 is inapplicable.

3. Reachability analysis

The vulnerable ordering requires pending remain-on-channel work, a scan starting while the ROC list is empty, and another ROC being added before the queued work runs. The supplied stack and patch establish this state sequence but do not establish which userspace actor can perform the complete sequence on the affected system.

Wireless management software, a process with delegated wireless control, or an administrator may be able to request the relevant operations. The supplied evidence does not positively establish ordinary unprivileged access, host-admin-only access, or the exact capability checks. HostAdminRequired and NamespaceScopedPrivilege therefore remain UNKNOWN.

No evidence establishes that an attacker-created user or network namespace can perform every required operation. No prior privileged setup beyond an operational mac80211 wireless interface is proven as a security prerequisite. Compatible wireless operation is required, but there is no basis for a rare-hardware penalty. The race appears potentially repeatable through repeated scan and ROC requests, so no hard-race penalty is justified.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact defect is a state-ordering race. Pending ROC work can observe and start a newly queued ROC after scanning has become active, violating the expected exclusion between scanning and remain-on-channel processing.

This is not a stale-object lifetime violation. No object is shown to be freed, reused, dereferenced after its lifetime, or released twice. It is neither active structured UAF nor fixed stale storage. There is no repeated release/refcount operation.

PrimitiveClass is CLASS_C because the demonstrated behavior is an invalid operational state ending in WARN_ON. The patch-supported consequence is a kernel warning and possible disruption of wireless operation. A kernel panic is only an environment-dependent possibility when warnings are configured as fatal. Memory corruption, information disclosure, integrity compromise, and privilege escalation are unsupported.

ImportantCandidate is NO because no independently useful corruption, ownership, authorization, or security-boundary primitive exists. AutoDowngradeAllowed is YES because the demonstrated issue is warning-only invalid-state behavior with no unresolved exploitation leverage.

5. One-sentence report phrase

A race between mac80211 scanning and pending remain-on-channel work can violate off-channel state ordering and trigger a kernel warning, but the supplied evidence establishes no memory corruption, authorization bypass, or independently useful exploitation primitive.

6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

The patch establishes a constrained state-race and WARN_ON condition without UAF, OOB access, shared-backing modification, authorization bypass, or a demonstrated fatal consequence.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: high

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

Patch: wifi: mac80211: don't start a ROC while scanning [ Upstream
Commit: 5dc8ec2f8d1d62914661577c23ec151f5c9734a4
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=5dc8ec2f8d1d62914661577c23ec151f5c9734a4

Changed files:
  net/mac80211/offchannel.c
  net/mac80211/scan.c
  net/wireless/core.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=5dc8ec2f8d1d62914661577c23ec151f5c9734a4

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98337 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98337

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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.7

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: 0

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).