Buffer overflow in Linux

CVE-2026-23073

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rsi: Fix memory corruption due to not set vif driver data size The struct ieee80211_vif contains trailing space for vif driver data, when struct ieee80211_vif is allocated, the total memory size that is allocated is sizeof(struct ieee80211_vif) + size of vif driver data. The size of vif driver data is set by each WiFi driver as needed. The RSI911x driver does not set vif driver data size, no trailing space for vif driver data is therefore allocated past struct ieee80211_vif . The RSI911x driver does however use the vif driver data to store its vif driver data structure "struct vif_priv". An access to vif->drv_priv leads to access out of struct ieee80211_vif bounds and corruption of some memory. In case of the failure observed locally, rsi_mac80211_add_interface() would write struct vif_priv *vif_info = (struct vif_priv *)vif->drv_priv; vif_info->vap_id = vap_idx. This write corrupts struct fq_tin member struct list_head new_flows . The flow = list_first_entry(head, struct fq_flow, flowchain); in fq_tin_reset() then reports non-NULL bogus address, which when accessed causes a crash. The trigger is very simple, boot the machine with init=/bin/sh , mount devtmpfs, sysfs, procfs, and then do "ip link set wlan0 up", "sleep 1", "ip link set wlan0 down" and the crash occurs. Fix this by setting the correct size of vif driver data, which is the size of "struct vif_priv", so that memory is allocated and the driver can store its driver data in it, instead of corrupting memory around it.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (3.8th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 4th percentile — 3.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-23073: held from 0.001 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions dad0d04fa7ba41ce603a01e8e64967650303e9a2, 3.15, 0
  • Linux Kernel — versions 6.19

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-23073?
CVE-2026-23073 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-02-04.
How severe is CVE-2026-23073?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.