CVE-2025-71127 | wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast address

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: Discard Beacon frames to non-broadcast address Beacon frames are required to be sent to the broadcast address, see IEEE Std 802.11-2020, 11.1.3.1 ("The Address 1 field of the Beacon .. frame shall be set to the broadcast address"). A unicast Beacon frame might be used as a targeted attack to get one of the associated STAs to do something (e.g., using CSA to move it to another channel). As such, it is better have strict filtering for this on the received side and discard all Beacon frames that are sent to an unexpected address. This is even more important for cases where beacon protection is used. The current implementation in mac80211 is correctly discarding unicast Beacon frames if the Protected Frame bit in the Frame Control field is set to 0. However, if that bit is set to 1, the logic used for checking for configured BIGTK(s) does not actually work. If the driver does not have logic for dropping unicast Beacon frames with Protected Frame bit 1, these frames would be accepted in mac80211 processing as valid Beacon frames even though they are not protected. This would allow beacon protection to be bypassed. While the logic for checking beacon protection could be extended to cover this corner case, a more generic check for discard all Beacon frames based on A1=unicast address covers this without needing additional changes. Address all these issues by dropping received Beacon frames if they are sent to a non-broadcast address.

Published: 2026-01-14 Last update: 2026-03-25 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-71127 is rated Low Risk (24.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-71127

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-03-26 0.06% 0.03% -0.04%
2 2026-02-18 0.02% 0.06% +0.04%
3 2026-01-15 0.02%

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-71127

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-71127

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-71127

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-71127 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (linux, linux-6.1), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-71127
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-71127
suse medium CVE-2025-71127 severity moderate: SUSE including 19 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 137 product×package rows across 25 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, … (25 product lines)): Known Not Affected 137. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-71127/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-71127 medium priority: Ubuntu including 157 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1562 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1157, ignored 179, released 138, not-affected 56, pending 19, needed 13. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-71127

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-71127

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7.1, < 5.10.248 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.198 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.160 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.120 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.65 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.18.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 5.7 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.7:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc7:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.19:rc8:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-71127

cvelogic Threat Intelligence