CVE-2026-23444

Name	CVE-2026-23444
Description	In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: always free skb on ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() failure ieee80211_tx_prepare_skb() has three error paths, but only two of them free the skb. The first error path (ieee80211_tx_prepare() returning TX_DROP) does not free it, while invoke_tx_handlers() failure and the fragmentation check both do. Add kfree_skb() to the first error path so all three are consistent, and remove the now-redundant frees in callers (ath9k, mt76, mac80211_hwsim) to avoid double-free. Document the skb ownership guarantee in the function's kdoc.
Source	CVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source Package	Release	Version	Status
linux (PTS)	bullseye	5.10.223-1	vulnerable
	bullseye (security)	5.10.251-1	vulnerable
	bookworm	6.1.159-1	vulnerable
	bookworm (security)	6.1.164-1	vulnerable
	trixie	6.12.73-1	vulnerable
	trixie (security)	6.12.74-2	vulnerable
	forky	6.19.11-1	fixed
	sid	6.19.13-1	fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

Package	Type	Release	Fixed Version	Urgency	Origin	Debian Bugs
linux	source	(unstable)	6.19.10-1

https://git.kernel.org/linus/d5ad6ab61cbd89afdb60881f6274f74328af3ee9 (7.0-rc5)