* [CVE-2026-98425][LOW] wifi: mac80211: don't warn when an IBSS has no channel to scan [ Upstream
@ 2026-10-15 11:42 21% AL-KERNEL
0 siblings, 0 replies; 1+ results
From: AL-KERNEL @ 2026-10-15 11:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: kernel-cve
CVE: CVE-2026-98425
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: mac80211: don't warn when an IBSS has no channel to scan [ Upstream
Commit: bb91c15953705445778c170a2523f12351c4d928
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=bb91c15953705445778c170a2523f12351c4d928
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98425
Analysis date: Thu, 15 Oct 2026 07:42:52 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: 0
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-2026-98425 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98425
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-2026-98425 LOW https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-98425 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-617;CWE-703;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N';BEST CVSS score: '4.7';DESCR 'mac80211 can emit WARN_ON_ONCE when an IBSS scan finds no permitted channels after a regulatory domain change. This is an expected temporary state during the regulatory grace period, and the function safely returns EINVAL without accessing invalid memory. Under normal kernel settings the result is only a one time diagnostic warning with no confidentiality, integrity, or availability impact. For the CVSS the PR:L reflects that controlling the wireless interface or regulatory state generally requires CAP_NET_ADMIN or a delegated equivalent capability. The condition is not directly network reachable through ordinary wireless traffic. In a nondefault panic_on_warn configuration the warning may cause a kernel panic, so the paranoid assessment treats the result as a local denial of service with AC:H. Automated impact decision path. The original SimpleNet classifier selected MODERATE_KPANIC. The primary LLM estimated paranoid CVSS 4.7 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_CIANNH and DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3 and KPANIC_UNSUPPORTED_REMOVED. The independent weaker Aegis shadow evaluated CVSS 0.0 and ActionableScore 0 with primitive class NONE 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 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=1
ActionableScoreLower=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: 1.
* Paranoid score: 1.
* No floor or cap was applied.
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::
2. Signal breakdown
Conservative signals:
* +0 WARN_ON continuation. When `n_ch == 0`, the vulnerable and fixed versions both return `-EINVAL`. No invalid memory access or corrupted state is consumed.
* +0 No security primitive. The patch establishes no UAF, OOB access, write, disclosure, authorization bypass, ownership violation, or persistent resource leak.
* +0 Availability. `WARN_ON_ONCE` ordinarily emits a diagnostic warning and stack trace but continues execution.
Paranoid signals:
* +1 Potential kernel panic under the nondefault `panic_on_warn` configuration. The reachable warning can become fatal in that configuration.
Material non-awarded signals:
* B5-R is not applicable because there is no heap OOB write, retry-accumulated index, or subsequent consumption of corrupted state.
* B3-PENDING is not applicable because no shared-backing write occurs.
* B4-PENDING is not applicable because no authorization decision or mandatory security guard is changed.
* Remote reachability is not established. Ordinary wireless traffic does not directly control this warning path.
* No race penalty was applied. A regulatory transition is involved, but the evidence does not establish a materially difficult attacker-driven race.
* No extra availability point was awarded because the possible panic is the only paranoid availability consequence.
* No C or I impact is supported.
3. Reachability analysis
The warning occurs when an IBSS scan observes zero permitted channels after the regulatory domain changes while the IBSS remains active during its grace period. The supplied evidence does not establish that an ordinary user can perform the complete sequence.
Wireless interface configuration commonly involves `CAP_NET_ADMIN`, but the exact capability checks and governing user namespace are not shown. Therefore, effective host-administrator requirements and complete namespace-scoped reachability remain unknown. Numeric host UID 0 is not established as necessary.
A preconfigured mac80211 wireless interface operating in IBSS mode is required. The paranoid fatal outcome additionally requires the administrator-controlled `panic_on_warn` setting. No direct packet-only trigger or special rare-hardware restriction is established.
4. Primitive and severity interpretation
The exact defect is an inappropriate diagnostic assertion for an expected temporary state. The zero-channel condition is checked before `local->int_scan_req->n_channels` is assigned, and both versions return `-EINVAL`. Consequently, no zero-length state is passed into later scan processing.
There is no stale object, lifetime violation, repeated release, buffer access, or active corrupted-state consumption. The issue is CLASS_C because its only security-relevant interpretation is a warning that may become a crash under `panic_on_warn`.
The demonstrated consequence is a one-time warning. The paranoid consequence is local denial of service in a nondefault panic-on-warning configuration. There is no defensible path to memory corruption, privilege escalation, or authorization bypass.
ImportantCandidate is NO because no Important-preserving primitive exists. AutoDowngradeAllowed is YES because the issue is diagnostic and contains no unresolved corruption or security-boundary mechanism.
5. One-sentence report phrase
An expected zero-channel IBSS scan state incorrectly triggers WARN_ON_ONCE, producing only a diagnostic warning under normal settings and a possible local kernel panic when the nondefault panic_on_warn option is enabled.
6. Manual review recommendation
NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED
The patch removes a warning from an expected state without changing the safe `-EINVAL` return or exposing a corruption, ownership, lifetime, or authorization primitive.
7. Call-site confidence
Call-site confidence: high
======================================================================
UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================
Patch: wifi: mac80211: don't warn when an IBSS has no channel to scan [ Upstream
Commit: bb91c15953705445778c170a2523f12351c4d928
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=bb91c15953705445778c170a2523f12351c4d928
Changed files:
net/mac80211/scan.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=bb91c15953705445778c170a2523f12351c4d928
======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================
The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98425 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98425
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:N
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: 0
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 [email protected] (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).
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