Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()
When the interface has NETIF_F_SG enabled and skb_linearize() fails in ax88179_tx_fixup(), the function returns NULL without freeing the skb.
usbnet_start_xmit() treats a NULL return from tx_fixup() as a drop (info->flags does not set FLAG_MULTI_PACKET for this driver), jumping to the "drop" label where it does `if (skb) dev_kfree_skb_any(skb)`. Because tx_fixup() returned NULL, the local skb variable in usbnet_start_xmit() is NULL, so the original skb is never freed — a memory leak on every TX frame whose linearization fails (i.e. under memory pressure).
Free the skb before returning, matching the error handling already used for the pskb_expand_head() failure path in the same function.
Metrics
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HAffected software
Source: the vendor's advisory (CNA). NVD analysis pending.
No affected versions have been published.
Timeline
- Published
- Aug 22, 2026
- Last modified
- Oct 16, 2026
- NVD status
- Received