Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-90016

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: staging: rtl8723bs: fix OOB read in rtw_restruct_wmm_ie() rtw_restruct_wmm_ie() scans in_ie for a WMM IE with: while (i < in_len) { ... if (i + 5 < in_len && in_ie[i] == 0xDD && ...) { ... break; } i += (in_ie[i + 1] + 2); /* to the next IE element */ } When the "i + 5 < in_len" match check fails simply because i is within 5 bytes of the end of the buffer (i.e. no WMM IE was found near the tail of in_ie), execution falls through to "i += (in_ie[i + 1] + 2)", which reads in_ie[i + 1]. If i == in_len - 1 at that point, this is a 1-byte out-of-bounds read of an attacker-influenced IE buffer built from association/scan data. Commit a75281626fc8f ("staging: rtl8723bs: fix potential out-of-bounds read in rtw_restruct_wmm_ie") added the "i + 5 < in_len" guard to the match condition itself, but did not add an equivalent guard before the fallthrough advance, so the same class of OOB read remained reachable through the non-matching path. Add an explicit bounds check before advancing to the next IE.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H.

Affected products

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-90016?
CVE-2026-90016 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.1/10. Published 2026-09-16.
How severe is CVE-2026-90016?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.1 out of 10.