---
id: CVE-2026-74678
title: |-
  In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

  net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()

  When the interface has NETIF_F_SG enabled and skb_linearize() fails in
  ax88179_tx_fixup(), the function retu…
summary: |-
  In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

  net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()

  When the interface has NETIF_F_SG enabled and skb_linearize() fails in
  ax88179_tx_fixup(), the function retu…
severity: high
cvss: 7.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
published: '2026-08-22'
updated: '2026-10-14'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-14T13:10:00.187'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-74678'
references:
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1c63303659a2264bd55d9813df74cb4caeed5922'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1f428e30947395d9b9aacee03e25a4e6cfcad7a4'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2be5091fa693b9119ad25a8bb8c149d236a23ade'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4039cd807a5a46dc5f7618fffae926b8ad8455eb'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/58733b1dd46bb231d9d279c132a20ee46da1b664'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/83a765cbd7b4d11b0b9fa1bb9d941ae911a2159b'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00479
epssPercentile: 0.39594
ingestedAt: '2026-10-14T13:30:58.534Z'
---

## Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: usb: ax88179_178a: fix skb leak in ax88179_tx_fixup()

When the interface has NETIF_F_SG enabled and skb_linearize() fails in
ax88179_tx_fixup(), the function returns NULL without freeing the skb.

usbnet_start_xmit() treats a NULL return from tx_fixup() as a drop
(info->flags does not set FLAG_MULTI_PACKET for this driver), jumping
to the "drop" label where it does `if (skb) dev_kfree_skb_any(skb)`.
Because tx_fixup() returned NULL, the local skb variable in
usbnet_start_xmit() is NULL, so the original skb is never freed — a
memory leak on every TX frame whose linearization fails (i.e. under
memory pressure).

Free the skb before returning, matching the error handling already used
for the pskb_expand_head() failure path in the same function.

## Remediation

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