[CVE-2026-64155][LOW] wifi: ath11k: fix error path leaks in some WMI WOW calls [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-64155
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: ath11k: fix error path leaks in some WMI WOW calls [ Upstream
Commit: d6c7b8d0dc22c0a8743435db8f42d98524b70df3
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=d6c7b8d0dc22c0a8743435db8f42d98524b70df3
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64155
Analysis date: Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:57:41 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: 0
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
ath11k WoW WMI error paths leaked skb buffers when command submission failed, allowing only a limited local resource-exhaustion DoS scenario under repeated privileged or delegated WiFi power-management operations.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-64155 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64155

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
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CVE-2026-64155	LOW	CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN IMPORTANT	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-401;*CWE-772;CWE-703;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '5.5';DESCR 'ath11k WMI WoW error paths can leak skb buffers when ath11k_wmi_cmd_send fails during WoW enable or host wakeup notification handling. This is a resource leak rather than a UAF or other memory corruption primitive. For the CVSS the PR:L is used for the paranoid score because a reduced capability local actor with delegated WiFi power management or network administration control may be able to exercise these WoW paths. The issue is not directly network reachable and cannot be triggered by ordinary WiFi traffic alone based on the patch context. Impact is denial of service through possible memory exhaustion after repeated command send failures, while confidentiality and integrity impact are not supported by the code change.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 1)	YES	REMOTE SIMPLEFIX LEAK ERRORPATH NETWORK SKB LINUS  LOWERED_FROM_HIGH_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS  DECREASED_TO_MODERATEREG_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN5 DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3	NO	NO	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
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ActionableScore=1
ActionableScoreLower=0

## 1. ActionableScore

* Conservative score: 0
* Paranoid score: 1
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like**

## 2. Signal breakdown

Conservative signals:

* Availability impact realistic: +1. Repeated leaks of skb buffers on WMI command send failure could theoretically contribute to memory pressure.
* Requires admin/root/CAP_* in typical deployments: -2. Exercising WoW enable or host wakeup paths normally requires privileged WiFi power management or driver control.
* Rare AND difficult-to-reach subsystem/configuration: -1. The affected path is ath11k WoW error handling and requires command send failures, not normal packet processing.

Conservative total is floored to 0.

Paranoid signals:

* Local unprivileged trigger: +1. In a delegated desktop or service environment, a reduced privilege local actor might be able to influence WoW or WiFi power-management operations indirectly.
* Availability impact realistic: +1. Sustained repeated failures could leak memory and eventually cause DoS.
* Rare AND difficult-to-reach subsystem/configuration: -1. The issue depends on ath11k hardware, WoW paths, and WMI send failures.

Paranoid total: 1.

Not applied:

* No remote/network-triggerable signal. Ordinary WiFi traffic is not enough based on the patch.
* No memory corruption signal. This is an skb leak on error path, not UAF, double-free, OOB write, or object confusion.
* No LPE signal. There is no reclaim, overwrite, callback, refcount abuse, or controlled reuse primitive.
* No confidentiality or integrity signal.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The bug is triggered only when `ath11k_wmi_cmd_send()` fails in two WoW-related WMI command paths and the allocated skb is not freed. In typical deployments, reaching these paths requires privileged control over WiFi power management, WoWLAN, suspend/resume, or driver state. Namespace/container delegation could lower the practical privilege requirement if a reduced-capability process is allowed to manage WiFi, but this is not the default security model. The path is hardware and configuration dependent and is not directly reachable from the network.

Call-site confidence: high. The relevant allocation, send call, return value handling, and added `dev_kfree_skb()` cleanup are visible in the patch.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves like a low-risk resource leak rather than an actionable memory-corruption vulnerability. The theoretical worst case is local DoS through repeated memory leakage under persistent WMI send failures. Realistic exploitation evidence is weak because the leak is small per event, requires repeated failures, and does not expose a clear unprivileged or remote trigger. It should be treated as ordinary Moderate or Low-like, not Important.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

ath11k WoW WMI error paths leaked skb buffers when command submission failed, allowing only a limited local resource-exhaustion DoS scenario under repeated privileged or delegated WiFi power-management operations.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

This is a bounded error-path resource leak with no evidence of memory corruption, privilege escalation, sensitive data exposure, or realistic remote reachability.

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

Patch: wifi: ath11k: fix error path leaks in some WMI WOW calls [ Upstream
Commit: d6c7b8d0dc22c0a8743435db8f42d98524b70df3
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=d6c7b8d0dc22c0a8743435db8f42d98524b70df3

Changed files:
  drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/wmi.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=d6c7b8d0dc22c0a8743435db8f42d98524b70df3

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-64155 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-64155

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:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.5

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 alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).