CVE-2026-97541

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ath9k_htc wireless driver. The driver stores a pointer to a USB device identifier that can be freed after the initial device probe when dynamic device identifiers are used. A local attacker could exploit this use-after-free vulnerability when the driver later accesses the deallocated memory during firmware loading or hardware initialization. This issue can lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) through a system crash or potentially arbitrary code execution.

A use-after-free flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ath9k_htc USB wireless driver, which Red Hat Product Security has rated Moderate. The driver stores a pointer to a usb_device_id structure that is not guaranteed to remain valid after USB probing completes when dynamic device IDs are used (for example, IDs added or removed through sysfs). If the driver later dereferences this stale pointer during firmware loading or hardware initialization, the kernel can crash, resulting in a denial of service; potentially unintended driver behavior is also possible. Exploitation requires local access with privileges to manipulate dynamic USB device IDs for an Atheros USB wireless device handled by ath9k_htc, which limits exposure, and the assessed impact is availability only (CVSS 3.1: 5.5, CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). The affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat In-Vehicle OS, and RHEL CoreOS (OpenShift Container Platform) kernel streams are marked affected with fixes deferred to future updates, leaving a residual risk of local denial of service on systems where dynamic ath9k_htc device IDs are added or removed; the RHEL 6 ELS stream is out of support scope.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.