{"id":"CVE-2026-12999","aliases":["EUVD-2026-64597","GHSA-8w97-ghfm-5wjp"],"status":"published","title":"Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver leaks TX buffers on send failure, leading to permanent pool exhaustion","description":"The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool.\n\nairoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted.\n\nThe leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot.\n\nThe fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data-\u003esema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.","severity":{"version":"3.1","score":5.3,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna","from":"cve"},"epss":{"day":"2026-11-12","score":0.00246,"percentile":0.16044,"model":"v2026.06.15"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":false},"cwes":["CWE-401"],"published":"2026-08-22T20:35:40Z","modified":"2026-11-04T04:59:44Z","products":[{"vendor":"zephyrproject","product":"zephyr"},{"vendor":"zephyrproject-rtos","product":"zephyr"}],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/4e6f624292ed153a762e98c7a297998c8d0b52c4","tags":["patch","fix"]},{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-8w97-ghfm-5wjp","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/12xxx/CVE-2026-12999.json","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-12999","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr","tags":["package"]}],"sources":{"cve":[{"id":"CVE-2026-12999","title":"Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver leaks TX buffers on send failure, leading to permanent pool exhaustion","description":"The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool.\n\nairoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted.\n\nThe leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot.\n\nThe fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data-\u003esema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-22T20:35:40.445Z","modified":"2026-11-04T04:59:44.959Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.3,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna"}],"cwes":["CWE-401"],"updated_at":"2026-11-04T05:21:48.223566Z"}],"euvd":[{"id":"EUVD-2026-64597","description":"The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool.\n\nairoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted.\n\nThe leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot.\n\nThe fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data-\u003esema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-22T20:35:40Z","modified":"2026-11-04T04:59:44Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.3,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-04T07:00:56.720215Z"}],"nvd":[{"id":"CVE-2026-12999","description":"The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool.\n\nairoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted.\n\nThe leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot.\n\nThe fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data-\u003esema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-22T21:16:48.747Z","modified":"2026-11-04T05:18:41.007Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.3,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"secondary"}],"cwes":["CWE-401"],"updated_at":"2026-11-04T06:53:20.502063Z"}],"osv":[{"id":"CVE-2026-12999","title":"Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver leaks TX buffers on send failure, leading to permanent pool exhaustion","description":"The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool.\n\nairoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted.\n\nThe leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot.\n\nThe fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data-\u003esema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.","status":"published","published":"2026-08-22T20:35:40.445Z","modified":"2026-11-11T10:47:26.948337764Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":5.3,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-401"],"updated_at":"2026-11-11T03:22:00.901153Z"}]}}