wifi: cfg80211: cancel wiphy_work before freeing wiphy
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: cancel wiphy_work before freeing wiphy A wiphy_work can be queued from the moment the wiphy is allocated and initialized (i.e. wiphy_new_nm). When a wiphy_work is queued, the rdev::wiphy_work is getting queued. If wiphy_free is called before the rdev::wiphy_work had a chance to run, the wiphy memory will be freed, and then when it eventally gets to run it'll use invalid memory. Fix this by canceling the work before freeing the wiphy.
02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE
Affected packages
75 explicit affected versions
03 / CONNECTIONS
Connected vulnerabilities
04 / EVIDENCE
Source records
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: cancel wiphy_work before freeing wiphy A wiphy_work can be queued from the moment the wiphy is allocated and initialized (i.e. wiphy_new_nm). When a wiphy_work is queued, the rdev::wiphy_work is getting queued. If wiphy_free is called before the rdev::wiphy_work had a chance to run, the wiphy memory will be freed, and then when it eventally gets to run it'll use invalid memory. Fix this by canceling the work before freeing the wiphy.
05 / REFERENCES
Further evidence
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0272d4af7f92997541d8bbf4c51918b93ded6ee2
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/72d520476a2fab6f3489e8388ab524985d6c4b90
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/75d262ad3c36d52852d764588fcd887f0fcd9138
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8930a3e1568cf534f86c8ed2def817c6d0528fc1
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a5158d67bff06cb6fea31be39aeb319fd908ed8e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dea22de162058216a90f2706f0d0b36f0ff309fd
- https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2025/21xxx/CVE-2025-21979.json
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/05/msg00045.html
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21979