[CVE-2026-98710][LOW] wifi: iwlegacy: 3945: free EEPROM data on remove

[CVE-2026-98710][LOW] wifi: iwlegacy: 3945: free EEPROM data on remove

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-98710
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: iwlegacy: 3945: free EEPROM data on remove
Commit: ab7bee2cd55f665cb29fa0ace2ec14020e0a452e
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=ab7bee2cd55f665cb29fa0ace2ec14020e0a452e
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98710
Analysis date: Mon, 19 Oct 2026 01:58:20 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
The iwlegacy 3945 removal path leaks its EEPROM allocation after a successful probe, but the demonstrated impact is limited to small persistent memory retention requiring repeated device lifecycle operations for meaningful resource pressure.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98710 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98710

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.

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

CVE-2026-98710	LOW	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-98710 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE | AEGIS IMPACT LOW AEGIS_AS=1 LEGACY=LOW RESULT=SAME (final reconciliation agrees; DECISION: both LOW)	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-401;*CWE-772;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.4';DESCR 'The iwlegacy 3945 driver leaks the EEPROM data allocation when a successfully initialized PCI device is removed because il3945_pci_remove releases the surrounding driver resources without releasing this allocation. Repeated device removal and reprobe cycles can accumulate retained kernel memory, although a single operation is expected to have only a small availability impact. For the CVSS the PR:H reflects that reliably triggering the vulnerable remove path normally requires administrative control over PCI driver binding, device removal, or equivalent host hardware management. The issue is not network reachable and ordinary wireless traffic does not directly trigger the leak. The demonstrated impact is resource retention with possible denial of service after sustained repetition. There is no supported UAF, OOB access, information disclosure, arbitrary write, or privilege escalation primitive. Automated impact decision path. The original SimpleNet classifier selected MODERATE_KPANIC. The primary LLM estimated paranoid CVSS 4.4 and the production ActionableScore returned 1 with recommendation Ordinary Moderate. The production rules then evaluated CVSS thresholds and ActionableScore thresholds. Recorded rule transitions were CVSS and initial triage stage MODERATE_KPANIC to MODERATE because the CVSS score, vector or bug class threshold rule was applied. ActionableScore thresholds stage MODERATE to LOW because the ActionableScore threshold rule was applied. final reconciliation stage LOW to LOW because KP specialist did not establish a qualifying panic. The legacy KP specialist has no review artifact for this run. The legacy FD or DH downgrade specialist has no review artifact for this run. Exact triggered rule markers were DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS and DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3 and KPANIC_UNSUPPORTED_REMOVED. The independent weaker Aegis shadow evaluated CVSS 2.3 and ActionableScore 1 with primitive class CLASS_C and manual review NO. Its independently reconciled impact was LOW. The shadow agreed with the final production impact and aggregation did not change that impact. The final reported impact is LOW.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 1)	MAYBE	REMOTE INIT SIMPLEFIX LEAK NETWORK HARDWARE DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3 KPANIC_UNSUPPORTED_REMOVED	-	-	checked

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

ActionableScore=1
PrimitiveClass=NONE
RealUAF=NO
HostAdminRequired=UNKNOWN
NamespaceScopedPrivilege=NO
ImportantCandidate=NO
ManualReview=NO
AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES
RequiresHostUID0=UNKNOWN
AuthorizationDecisionBypass=NO
ProtectedResourceImpact=NONE
B4PendingReview=NO
B4PendingConfirmed=NO

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 1
* Conservative score: 1
* Raw paranoid score: 1
* Paranoid score: 1
* No floor or cap was applied.
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::

2. Signal breakdown

* +1 Concrete persistent kernel resource leak. `il_eeprom_init()` allocates EEPROM data, but the successful-probe removal path omitted `il_eeprom_free()`, permanently losing the allocation.
* No resource-exhaustion bonus. Repeated remove and reprobe cycles can accumulate memory, but practical host-wide exhaustion is not established and each individual leak appears small.
* No host-admin penalty. Reliable software-controlled removal and reprobe likely require host device-management privileges, but the supplied call path does not conclusively exclude physical hot removal or another trigger. The privilege boundary therefore remains unknown.
* No rare-hardware penalty. The driver is legacy and hardware-specific, but rarity and physical-only triggerability are not sufficiently established.
* No UAF, OOB access, double release, arbitrary write, authorization bypass, shared-backing corruption, or active-state corruption is present.
* NEW52 B5-R does not apply. There is no retry-accumulated heap OOB write or later consumption of corrupted structured state.
* NEW53 B3-PENDING does not apply. No shared or file-backed storage is modified.
* V32, V33, and V34 do not apply. No attacker-controlled SKB metadata or downstream privileged packet consumer is involved.
* NEW54 B4-PENDING does not apply. The patch restores resource cleanup rather than an authorization decision.

3. Reachability analysis

The vulnerable cleanup executes when a successfully probed Intel 3945 PCI wireless device is removed. A reliable repeated software trigger would normally involve PCI driver unbinding and reprobe operations over host-owned hardware, but the supplied patch does not show the exact permission checks. Consequently, host-administrator privilege is plausible but not positively established for every possible removal path.

The PCI device lifecycle is not controlled through an attacker-created user or network namespace, so `NamespaceScopedPrivilege=NO`. Ordinary wireless traffic cannot directly reach the missing cleanup operation. No race is involved. Repeated accumulation would additionally require many successful probe and removal cycles.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact primitive is a missing release of an EEPROM allocation during device removal. It is a persistent resource leak, not a stale-object use or memory-corruption primitive.

There is no first release followed by use of a dangling reference, no second lifetime mutation, and no attacker-controlled overwrite. The demonstrated consequence is retention of a small kernel allocation after each removal. Sustained memory exhaustion is theoretically possible through enough repeated cycles, but the patch does not establish a practical host-wide DoS rate or an accessible low-privilege trigger.

`PrimitiveClass=NONE` is appropriate because no independently useful corruption, authorization, ownership, or post-lifetime primitive is established. `ImportantCandidate=NO` and `AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES` follow because this is a constrained resource leak without a security-boundary consequence.

5. One-sentence report phrase

The iwlegacy 3945 removal path leaks its EEPROM allocation after a successful probe, but the demonstrated impact is limited to small persistent memory retention requiring repeated device lifecycle operations for meaningful resource pressure.

6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

The issue is suitable for automatic low-priority handling because it is a concrete but constrained resource leak with no demonstrated memory corruption, authorization bypass, low-privilege trigger, or host-wide exhaustion.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: high

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

Patch: wifi: iwlegacy: 3945: free EEPROM data on remove
Commit: ab7bee2cd55f665cb29fa0ace2ec14020e0a452e
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=ab7bee2cd55f665cb29fa0ace2ec14020e0a452e

Commit description:

il3945_pci_probe() calls il_eeprom_init(), which allocates memory for
the EEPROM data. The probe failure paths release this allocation with
il_eeprom_free(), but the remove path does not free it after a
successful probe.

As a result, the EEPROM data is leaked when the PCI device is removed.

Free the EEPROM data in il3945_pci_remove() before releasing the
mac80211 hardware structure.

This issue was found by manual code inspection.

Fixes: 073d3f5 ("iwlwifi: changing EEPROM layout handling")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Stanislaw Gruszka <stf_xl@wp.pl>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260916073736.2952028-1-lgs201920130244@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

Changed files:
  drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlegacy/3945-mac.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=ab7bee2cd55f665cb29fa0ace2ec14020e0a452e

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98710 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98710

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:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.4

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: 1

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).