kernel: wifi: mt76: mt7615: avoid waiting for mac work under the mt76 mutex (CVE-2026-80938)

Overview

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel, specifically within the mt7615 Wi-Fi driver. A deadlock can occur during system suspend operations when the suspend process attempts to acquire a mutex (a locking mechanism) while simultaneously waiting for a work item (mac_work) that also requires the same mutex. If mac_work is already running and blocked on the mutex, the suspend path will indefinitely wait for the work it holds the mutex against. This can result in a Denial of Service (DoS), making the system unresponsive.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · updated 2026-09-14 · vex

kernel: wifi: mt76: mt7615: avoid waiting for mac work under the mt76 mutex — rated Moderate by Red Hat. Released 2026-09-11, updated 2026-09-14.

Not affected:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
• Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4

Remediation

Refer to the advisory for fix availability.