[CVE-2026-68310][MODERATE REGULAR] wifi: mt76: mt7915: guard HE capability lookups [ Upstream

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

CVE: CVE-2026-68310
Priority: MODERATE REGULAR
AL-KERNEL base severity: MODERATE
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: wifi: mt76: mt7915: guard HE capability lookups [ Upstream
Commit: 23a2b98e754da04e0e90314d5fa8ca44349590fb
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=23a2b98e754da04e0e90314d5fa8ca44349590fb
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68310
Analysis date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:32:22 -0400
ActionableScore: 3
ActionableScore lower bound: 0
Actionable bucket: Borderline, manual review recommended
Manual review required: YES

Summary:
A NULL pointer dereference in mt76 mt7915 HE capability handling may allow a local wireless administrator or possibly a network adjacent WiFi peer under specific HE beamforming conditions to crash the kernel.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-68310 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68310

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: MODERATE REGULAR
Manual review required: YES

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-2026-68310	MODERATE	CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';**CWE-476;CWE-252;CWE-703;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';BEST CVSS score: '5.3';DESCR 'A NULL pointer dereference can occur in the mt76 mt7915 HE capability handling path because mt7915_mcu_bss_he_tlv() and mt7915_mcu_sta_bfer_tlv() can dereference the HE PHY capability returned by mt76_connac_get_he_phy_cap() even when no capability entry matches the vif type. A local administrator or a process with wireless configuration control can trigger the issue through an unsupported or unusual vif configuration. A network adjacent WiFi peer may also be able to reach the vulnerable station beamforming path when the device is already configured in a susceptible mode, but that depends on local AP configuration and HE beamforming conditions. For the CVSS the PR:N is used in the paranoid score because an adjacent attacker may not need privileges on the victim once the vulnerable wireless service is configured. The issue is not Internet reachable and is limited to local or adjacent WiFi range. Impact is denial of service via kernel crash. No clear UAF, OOB write, information leak, or privilege escalation primitive is shown by the patch context.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Borderline, manual review recommended (with actual score 2)  SKIP CVE-2026-68310 UNKNOWN SKIP No affected files built, so skip this CVE NO  - - unknown 	MAYBE	REMOTE SIMPLEFIX NETWORK  DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS_AND_CIANNH	-	-	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
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ActionableScore=3
ActionableScoreLower=0

## 1. ActionableScore

* Conservative score: 0
* Paranoid score: 3
* Final recommended bucket: **Borderline, manual review recommended**::

## 2. Signal breakdown

Conservative signals:

* Reliable kernel crash / strong DoS: +1. The patch prevents NULL dereference of the HE PHY capability pointer.
* Requires admin/root/CAP_NET_ADMIN in typical deployments: -2. The most direct trigger is unusual wireless interface or AP configuration.
* Rare AND difficult-to-reach subsystem/configuration: -1. This is specific to mt7915 hardware and HE capability mismatch conditions.

Paranoid signals:

* Remote reachable / network-triggerable: +2. A network-adjacent WiFi peer may reach the station beamforming path if the device is already configured in a susceptible AP mode.
* Reliable kernel crash / strong DoS: +1. NULL dereference can crash the kernel.
* Hard or unreliable race / special preconditions required: -1. Trigger depends on HE capability mismatch, vif type, beamforming, and local wireless configuration.
* Rare AND difficult-to-reach subsystem/configuration: -1. The affected path is device and feature specific.
* Broad/default/common subsystem or broadly deployed exposure: +1. WiFi AP/client functionality is common enough to avoid treating this as purely obscure.

No memory corruption score is added. This is an invalid NULL pointer dereference, not UAF, OOB write, double free, type confusion, or refcount misuse.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The direct local trigger likely requires CAP_NET_ADMIN or equivalent wireless configuration control. A less certain adjacent-network trigger may exist through HE beamforming station setup when an mt7915 device is operating in a susceptible mode. This is not Internet reachable and requires local WiFi range plus specific device and feature conditions. Namespaces do not obviously make this unprivileged unless wireless administration is delegated into a container or service context.

Call-site confidence: high. The relevant callers and the dereference site are visible in the provided patch.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves mostly like an ordinary Moderate or borderline manual-review issue. The realistic impact is kernel crash DoS. The theoretical adjacent WiFi trigger makes it worth manual review, but the patch does not support confidentiality impact, integrity impact, privilege escalation, or a stronger memory corruption primitive.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

A NULL pointer dereference in mt76 mt7915 HE capability handling may allow a local wireless administrator or possibly a network adjacent WiFi peer under specific HE beamforming conditions to crash the kernel.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED

The issue is DoS-only based on the patch, but manual review is recommended because the affected path is wireless and a network-adjacent trigger may be possible under specific AP and HE beamforming configurations.

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

Patch: wifi: mt76: mt7915: guard HE capability lookups [ Upstream
Commit: 23a2b98e754da04e0e90314d5fa8ca44349590fb
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=23a2b98e754da04e0e90314d5fa8ca44349590fb

Changed files:
  drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt7915/mcu.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=23a2b98e754da04e0e90314d5fa8ca44349590fb

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-68310 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68310

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:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.3

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: 3

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: MODERATE
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): MODERATE REGULAR

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).