Executive brief
A memory leak vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's Realtek rtw88 Wi-Fi driver. This issue occurs when the system fails to properly release memory during certain hardware registration error scenarios. If exploited, a local user could potentially cause a system slowdown or crash by exhausting available system memory.
Technical details
A memory leak (CWE-401) exists in the rtw88 driver within the Linux kernel due to improper memory management in the rtw_register_hw() function. Specifically, memory allocated for supported Wi-Fi bands was not released during error handling paths in rtw_set_supported_band(). An attacker with local access could trigger these error paths to repeatedly leak memory, eventually leading to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition via memory exhaustion. The vulnerability has been resolved by migrating to device-managed memory allocations (devm_kmemdup), which ensures automatic cleanup. Patches are available in various stable kernel branches including 6.12.75, 6.18.16, and 6.19.6.
Affected products
- Linux Linux kernel 5.2 to 6.12.75, 6.13 to 6.18.16, 6.19 to 6.19.6
Timeline
- 2026-05-06: advisory: NVD publication date
- 2025-12-24: patched: Initial patch commit date