From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: AL-KERNEL To: kernel-cve@kernelcve.org Subject: [CVE-2026-92496][MODERATE REGULAR] wifi: ath11k: Avoid buffer overread in ath11k_wmi_tlv_op_rx() [ Upstream Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2026 16:47:43 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-AL-KERNEL-CVE: CVE-2026-92496 X-AL-KERNEL-Priority: MODERATE REGULAR X-AL-KERNEL-Severity: MODERATE REGULAR X-AL-KERNEL-Base-Severity: MODERATE X-AL-KERNEL-KPANIC: NO X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore: 2 X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore-Lower: 1 X-AL-KERNEL-Commit: 20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef List-Id: CVE: CVE-2026-92496 Priority: MODERATE REGULAR AL-KERNEL base severity: MODERATE KPANIC flag: NO Patch: wifi: ath11k: Avoid buffer overread in ath11k_wmi_tlv_op_rx() [ Upstream Commit: 20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-92496 Analysis date: Thu, 17 Sep 2026 16:47:43 -0400 ActionableScore: 2 ActionableScore lower bound: 1 Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate Manual review required: YES Summary: No one-sentence report phrase was found. ====================================================================== ABOUT THIS REPORT ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-92496 is available here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-92496 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. ====================================================================== AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT ====================================================================== CVE-2026-92496 MODERATE https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-92496 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:L/I:N/A:H';CWE-125;CWE-126;*CWE-20;Other CVSS 'AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '5.9';DESCR 'A buffer overread in the ath11k WMI receive path can occur because ath11k_wmi_tlv_op_rx reads the WMI command header from skb data before verifying that the skb is large enough to contain that header. A malformed short WMI event from firmware can make the driver read beyond the valid skb payload while extracting the command id. For the CVSS the PR:N is used for the paranoid adjacent attack model because a wireless peer may not need local privileges if malformed firmware events can be influenced through radio input, but reliable triggering is firmware and device dependent. The issue is not proven to be directly reachable from the public Internet and is better modeled as adjacent network exposure for Wi-Fi environments. Impact is primarily denial of service or limited kernel memory overread. No concrete write primitive or UAF is shown, so privilege escalation is not assumed.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 2) YES REMOTE SIMPLEFIX NETWORK SKB HARDWARE LINUS TEST DECREASED_TO_MODERATEREG_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN4 NO NO checked ====================================================================== ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS ====================================================================== ActionableScore=2 ActionableScoreLower=1 PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C RealUAF=NO HostAdminRequired=UNKNOWN NamespaceScopedPrivilege=NO ImportantCandidate=NO ManualReview=RECOMMENDED AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES 1. ActionableScore * Raw conservative score: 1 * Conservative score: 1. No floor or cap applied. * Raw paranoid score: 2 * Paranoid score: 2. No floor or cap applied. * Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**:: 2. Signal breakdown Conservative signals: * +1: Weak read-only OOB primitive. The patch establishes that ath11k_wmi_tlv_op_rx() reads skb->data as a wmi_cmd_hdr before confirming that skb->len can hold the header. * +0: No reliable kernel crash signal. The demonstrated primitive is an overread before skb_pull() rejects the short skb. A panic or host-wide crash is not directly established. * +0: No confidentiality impact awarded. The overread value is used as an internal command id and no attacker-visible disclosure path is established. * +0: No integrity impact awarded. No write, UAF, refcount mutation, ownership violation, or active object corruption is shown. Paranoid additional signal: * +1: Firmware-mediated external influence. The buffer comes from the ath11k firmware/WMI receive path, and malformed firmware events may plausibly be influenced by wireless activity, but direct radio-to-kernel control is not established. Important non-awarded signals: * Controlled reclaim not demonstrated. * Arbitrary write not demonstrated. * UAF not demonstrated. * Concrete repeated release/refcount mutation not present. * Direct remote network reachability not established because firmware/device mediation is material. * Extra Availability not awarded because a reliable fatal crash is not established. * ImportantCandidate not set because this is a limited OOB read without disclosure, write, UAF, or boundary bypass. 3. Reachability analysis The vulnerable operation is in the ath11k WMI event receive path. The immediate input is a firmware-provided skb, not a normal userspace syscall buffer and not a directly parsed Internet packet. A malicious or malformed firmware event can reach the bug. Whether an adjacent Wi-Fi peer can reliably cause such a short WMI event is unresolved from the supplied patch. Therefore the paranoid model allows firmware-mediated adjacent exposure, but not direct AV:N style network reachability. Host-admin-equivalent privilege is not positively established as required for the malformed event, but below-host-admin reachability is also not proven. Therefore HostAdminRequired is UNKNOWN. No namespace-scoped capability path is relevant or established. No prior host setup beyond having ath11k hardware/driver active is proven as an attacker-controlled prerequisite. The issue is hardware/driver specific, but the prompt does not support a rare-hardware penalty merely because this is a Wi-Fi driver. No race or timing condition is involved. 4. Primitive and severity interpretation The exact primitive is a read-only buffer overread of the WMI command header from skb->data before validating skb->len. This is not an active structured UAF and not fixed stale storage. It is a short-buffer validation bug causing an invalid read. There is no concrete second lifetime/refcount operation. There is no evidence that the first operation can free an object or that a later operation mutates a dangling reference. PrimitiveClass is CLASS_C because the demonstrated behavior is a weak invalid read / OOB read without an independently useful corruption primitive. The demonstrated consequence is buffer overread. A crash is possible in hardened/debug settings or unusual memory layout, but not strongly established as reliable host-wide DoS. Privilege escalation is speculative and unsupported. ImportantCandidate is NO because there is no UAF, OOB write, controlled corruption, disclosure channel, or authorization/security-boundary bypass. AutoDowngradeAllowed is YES because the unresolved risk is mainly firmware-mediated reachability of a limited OOB read, not a meaningful unresolved exploitation primitive. Likely operational severity is ordinary Moderate or Low-like, with manual review recommended only because the bug is in a wireless driver input path and reachability from adjacent attackers is not fully resolved by the patch alone. 5. One-sentence report phrase ath11k reads a WMI command header before validating that the firmware supplied skb is large enough, allowing a malformed short WMI event to cause a limited kernel buffer overread with possible adjacent Wi-Fi relevance but no demonstrated disclosure, write primitive, UAF, or privilege escalation. 6. Manual review recommendation MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED Reason: this is a kernel OOB read in a wireless firmware event path, and adjacent attacker influence through Wi-Fi/firmware behavior is plausible but not proven. The primitive itself is weak enough that urgent Important handling is not justified without stronger reachability or disclosure evidence. 7. Call-site confidence Call-site confidence: medium ====================================================================== UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY ====================================================================== Patch: wifi: ath11k: Avoid buffer overread in ath11k_wmi_tlv_op_rx() [ Upstream Commit: 20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef 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=20166fd9a4ad15d7eccc63c9dc99680aea6558ef ====================================================================== DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-92496 can be found here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-92496 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:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:L The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.9 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: 1 Paranoid ActionableScore: 2 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).