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wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast address

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast address Beacon frames are required to be sent to the broadcast address, see IEEE Std 802.11-2020, 11.1.3.1 ("The Address 1 field of the Beacon .. frame shall be set to the broadcast address"). A unicast Beacon frame might be used as a targeted attack to get one of the associated STAs to do something (e.g., using CSA to move it to another channel). As such, it is better have strict filtering for this on the received side and discard all Beacon frames that are sent to an unexpected address. This is even more important for cases where beacon protection is used. The current implementation in mac80211 is correctly discarding unicast Beacon frames if the Protected Frame bit in the Frame Control field is set to 0. However, if that bit is set to 1, the logic used for checking for configured BIGTK(s) does not actually work. If the driver does not have logic for dropping unicast Beacon frames with Protected Frame bit 1, these frames would be accepted in mac80211 processing as valid Beacon frames even though they are not protected. This would allow beacon protection to be bypassed. While the logic for checking beacon protection could be extended to cover this corner case, a more generic check for discard all Beacon frames based on A1=unicast address covers this without needing additional changes. Address all these issues by dropping received Beacon frames if they ar

Announced Source revision 1
Original source ↗

CVE-2025-71127

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: cve:CVE-2025-71127

Linux

Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
Not stated in this record
Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Linux

Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/1/product

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
Not stated in this record
Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
    "vendor": "Linux",
    "product": "Linux",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "be0974be5c42584e027883ac2af7dab5e950098c",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "0a59a3895f804469276d188effa511c72e752f35",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "88aab153d1528bc559292a12fb5105ee97528e1f",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "6e5bff40bb38741e40c33043ba0816fba5f93661",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "7b240a8935d554ad36a52c2c37c32039f9afaef2",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "a21704df4024708be698fb3fd5830d5b113b70e0",
        "versionType": "git"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "af2d14b01c32d7cba65f73503586e5b621afb139",
        "lessThan": "193d18f60588e95d62e0f82b6a53893e5f2f19f8",
        "versionType": "git"
      }
    ],
    "programFiles": [
      "net/mac80211/rx.c"
    ],
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected"
  },
  {
    "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
    "vendor": "Linux",
    "product": "Linux",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "5.7"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "0",
        "lessThan": "5.7",
        "versionType": "semver"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "5.10.248",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "5.10.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "5.15.198",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "5.15.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "6.1.160",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.1.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "6.6.120",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.6.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "6.12.65",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.12.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "6.18.4",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "6.18.*"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "6.19",
        "versionType": "original_commit_for_fix",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "*"
      }
    ],
    "programFiles": [
      "net/mac80211/rx.c"
    ],
    "defaultStatus": "affected"
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2025-71127

Source reference: /cveMetadata/cveId

Publisher severity

high

Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics

Event
#39164 · Revision 1
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Publisher date
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