---
id: CVE-2026-12999
title: >-
  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
summary: >-
  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 synchron…
severity: medium
cvss: 5.3
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-401
published: '2026-08-22'
updated: '2026-10-12'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-12T16:10:00.220'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-12999'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/4e6f624292ed153a762e98c7a297998c8d0b52c4
    label: vulnerabilities@zephyrproject.org
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-8w97-ghfm-5wjp
    label: vulnerabilities@zephyrproject.org
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00246
epssPercentile: 0.14664
ingestedAt: '2026-10-12T16:57:59.885Z'
---

## Overview

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.

airoc_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.

The 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.

The 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->sema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.