In Zephyr's kernel pipe implementation, the userspace syscall verifier z_vrfy_k_pipe_init() in kernel/pipe.c used K_SYSCALL_OBJ() (which requires the kernel object to already be initialized) instead of K_SYSCALL_OBJ_NEVER_INIT() (which rejects an already-initialized object). As a result, on CONFIG_USERSPACE builds an unprivileged user thread that has been granted access to a k_pipe object can invoke the k_pipe_init syscall to re-initialize a pipe that is already in use.
z_impl_k_pipe_init() unconditionally resets the ring buffer, sets pipe->waiting to 0, and re-initializes both wait queues (z_waitq_init on pipe->data and pipe->space) without waking or accounting for threads currently blocked on the pipe. Any thread already pended in k_pipe_read()/k_pipe_write() is left orphaned: still marked pending with pended_on pointing at the cleared wait queue and with stale qnode_dlist links into the (now re-initialized) embedded list head.
When such an orphaned waiter is later timed out or woken, the scheduler calls sys_dlist_remove() on its stale node, writing through dangling prev/next pointers into kernel wait-queue/scheduler structures, causing list corruption (an attacker-driven invalid kernel write), lost wakeups, indefinitely blocked threads, and silent data loss. The flaw lets a deprivileged user thread corrupt the state of a kernel object shared with other threads/partitions.
The fix switches the verifier to K_SYSCALL_OBJ_NEVER_INIT(), matching the existing k_msgq_init verifier, so a user thread can no longer re-initialize a live pipe. The vulnerable code shipped in v4.1.0 and remained through v4.4.0.
The nRF70 Wi-Fi driver's power-save event handler nrf_wifi_event_proc_get_power_save_info() in drivers/wifi/nrf_wifi/src/wifi_mgmt.c copied TWT (Target Wake Time) flow entries from an nrf_wifi_umac_event_power_save_info event into the fixed-size twt_flows[WIFI_MAX_TWT_FLOWS] (8-element) array of a caller-supplied struct wifi_ps_config, looping over event-provided num_twt_flows without validating it against WIFI_MAX_TWT_FLOWS or checking event_len. When num_twt_flows exceeds 8, the handler writes past the destination array (which is typically on the caller's stack, e.g. the wifi ps shell command) -- an out-of-bounds write of ~40-byte TWT entries -- and reads twt_flow_info[i] past the event buffer. The event is delivered by the nRF70 co-processor firmware in response to a host-initiated power-save GET, so reaching the overflow requires the firmware to emit a malformed or out-of-range event; the trust boundary is host-to-trusted-coprocessor rather than a direct remote-AP write, with over-the-air influence on the flow count being indirect and bounded by the 3-bit TWT flow-id space. Affected: builds with CONFIG_NRF70_STA_MODE on releases through v4.4.0. The fix rejects events with num_twt_flows > WIFI_MAX_TWT_FLOWS or with event_len shorter than the claimed entries, and adds a NULL check on the caller buffer.
parse_ipv4() in subsys/net/ip/utils.c (reached via net_ipaddr_parse() for strings of the form "a.b.c.d:port") copies the port substring into a fixed 17-byte stack buffer (char ipaddr[NET_IPV4_ADDR_LEN + 1]) using a length of str_len - end - 1, where str_len is the full, unbounded input length and end is only the (<=15-byte) offset of the ':' delimiter. Because the destination size is never consulted, a crafted address string with a long suffix after the colon (e.g. "1.2.3.4:" followed by hundreds of bytes) causes an out-of-bounds stack write whose length and contents are fully attacker-controlled (memcpy of the suffix plus a trailing NUL), enabling memory corruption and at minimum a denial of service, and potentially control-flow hijack. The parser is reached from the standard socket API (zsock_getaddrinfo / literal-address resolution), DNS server-string configuration, and the eswifi Wi-Fi co-processor DNS-response path, so an application that resolves a network-influenced address string is exposed. The bug was introduced when the parser was added (Zephyr v1.9.0) and shipped in all releases through v4.4.0. The fix removes the unbounded copy and validates the port length before copying into a small dedicated buffer. Note: the equivalent IPv6 "[addr]:port" path in parse_ipv6() retains the same unbounded copy at this commit and remains a separate, still-reachable instance of the defect.
Zephyr's dynamic kernel-object tracking (kernel/userspace/userspace.c, formerly kernel/userspace.c) maintains a doubly-linked list (obj_list) of dynamically allocated kernel objects. Iteration over this list in k_object_wordlist_foreach() was performed under lists_lock using the SAFE iterator (which caches the next node), but list removal and freeing of nodes was performed under different, disjoint spinlocks: objfree_lock in k_object_free() and obj_lock in unref_check(). On an SMP system, while one CPU iterated obj_list under lists_lock, another CPU could unlink and k_free() the dyn_obj node that the iterator had cached as its next pointer, causing the iterator to dereference freed kernel memory (use-after-free / dangling list traversal). All of the racing operations are reachable from unprivileged user-mode threads via system calls: k_object_alloc/k_object_alloc_size and k_object_release drive removals through unref_check() (under obj_lock), while k_thread_abort and thread creation drive the iteration through k_thread_perms_all_clear()/k_thread_perms_inherit() (under lists_lock). A deprivileged user thread on a CONFIG_SMP + CONFIG_USERSPACE build can therefore corrupt the kernel's object-tracking structures across the userspace security boundary, yielding kernel memory corruption (potential privilege escalation) or a kernel crash (denial of service). The fix removes objfree_lock and serializes every obj_list modification under lists_lock, including holding it across find+remove in k_object_free() and around unref_check() in k_thread_perms_clear(). Affects CONFIG_SMP+CONFIG_USERSPACE+CONFIG_DYNAMIC_OBJECTS configurations; the defect dates to the 2019 spinlockification (commit 8a3d57b6cc6, first released in v1.14.0) and shipped through v4.4.0.
Zephyr's DNS resolver detects mDNS (.local) queries in dns_resolve_name_internal() (subsys/net/lib/dns/resolve.c) with memcmp(strrchr(query, '.'), ".local", 7), which always reads a fixed 7 bytes from the suffix pointer. When the resolved hostname's final label is shorter than 7 bytes (e.g. names ending in .org, .com, .net, .io, or a trailing dot), the comparison reads 1-2 bytes past the string's NUL terminator.
The hostname (query) is the caller-supplied name passed through the standard getaddrinfo()/dns_get_addr_info()/dns_resolve_name() path and is influenceable by operators or remote inputs (server names from configuration, parsed URLs, or app-facing interfaces).
On a tightly-sized buffer with no slack (for example a userspace getaddrinfo call where the hostname is copied with k_usermode_string_alloc_copy to exactly strlen+1 bytes), the over-read crosses the allocation boundary; if that boundary is unmapped (guard page, memory-domain boundary under MPU, or an address sanitizer) the over-read faults, causing a denial of service. The over-read bytes are never returned, so there is no information disclosure.
The flaw is compiled only when CONFIG_MDNS_RESOLVER is enabled, exists since v1.10.0, and is fixed by replacing the fixed-length memcmp with a NUL-safe strcmp(ptr, ".local").
The Zephyr Bluetooth controller ISO Adaptation Layer (subsys/bluetooth/controller/ll_sw/isoal.c) fails to validate the length field of a framed ISO PDU start segment. Per the Bluetooth specification a start segment (sc=0) always carries a 3-byte time_offset, so its segment-header len must be at least PDU_ISO_SEG_TIMEOFFSET_SIZE (3). isoal_check_seg_header() accepted start segments with len < 3 as valid, and isoal_rx_framed_consume() then computed length = seg_hdr->len - 3 in a uint8_t, underflowing to 253-255 when len is 0-2. That oversized length is passed to isoal_rx_append_to_sdu(), whose copy is clamped only against the destination SDU buffer size, not the source PDU length, so up to ~255 bytes of controller memory beyond the received PDU are copied (via sink_sdu_write_hci()/net_buf_add_mem) into an HCI ISO data packet and delivered to the host. The PDU and its segment headers are entirely attacker-controlled and arrive over the air, reachable through both the CIS and BIS-sync HCI data paths (hci_driver.c) and the vendor data path (ull_iso.c), so a remote CIS peer or a broadcaster the device is synced to can trigger an out-of-bounds read causing information disclosure to the host and potential denial of service (faults or malformed oversized HCI ISO packets). The flaw affects all Zephyr releases since framed ISO reception was introduced in v3.0.0. The fix rejects sc=0 segments with len < 3 in isoal_check_seg_header() and adds a guard before the subtraction in isoal_rx_framed_consume().
The Zephyr net_buf library (lib/net_buf/buf.c) manipulated both of its reference counts -- the per-header buf->ref and the per-data-block ref_count at the start of each variable/heap data allocation -- with plain non-atomic C operators (buf->ref++, if (--buf->ref > 0), if (--(*ref_count))).
The API is documented as self-synchronizing: callers may share one buffer across threads (e.g. via k_fifo) and each holder independently calls net_buf_unref() with no surrounding lock. Under true concurrency (SMP, or single-core preemption between the non-atomic load and store while another context unrefs the same buffer), two holders can both observe the same prior reference value and both conclude they are the last reference.
For heap/variable-data pools (mem_pool_data_unref/heap_data_unref, used by zbus message subscribers, the IP stack RX/TX buffers when CONFIG_NET_BUF_FIXED_DATA_SIZE=n, capture, wireguard, ISO-TP and usbip) this produces a double k_heap_free()/k_free() of the same block -- heap-metadata corruption and a use-after-free on the heap-hardening poison pattern.
For the per-header refcount the buffer is returned to the pool free LIFO twice for any pool type (including fixed-data pools used by Bluetooth and networking), corrupting the free list so a later allocation hands the same buffer to two owners.
The fix converts both refcounts to atomic_inc/atomic_dec (overlaying buf->ref in an atomic_t-sized union and changing the data-block refcount from uint8_t to atomic_t).
Impact is gated on genuine concurrency and on an application architecture that shares one buffer among multiple independent unref'ers; the trigger is a refcount/timing race rather than packet content, so an external attacker has at most weak indirect influence over the race window. Affects all Zephyr releases through v4.4.0.
This fix is not being backported to v3.7-branch (LTS). The backport was attempted and closed unmerged (#111181): the v3.7 networking tree has diverged from main, and the new atomic word-packing -- together with the assertions it adds -- turns pre-existing v3.7-only reference-counting defects elsewhere in the stack into hard faults, so landing the change faithfully would mean pulling an open-ended set of additional v3.7-only fixes into an LTS branch. v3.7 remains affected. Applications on v3.7 that share one net_buf across threads should serialize their own net_buf_unref() calls rather than rely on the documented self-synchronizing behaviour. The fix is on main and has been backported to v4.3-branch (#110852) and v4.4-branch (#110853).
A race condition in the Zephyr Bluetooth Classic RFCOMM host stack (subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/rfcomm.c) mishandles a simultaneous bidirectional session disconnect. When the local device has initiated a session teardown (state BT_RFCOMM_STATE_DISCONNECTING, DISC sent, RTX timer armed) and the connected peer concurrently sends its own DISC frame for dlci 0, rfcomm_handle_disc() invokes rfcomm_session_disconnected(), which unconditionally forced the session to BT_RFCOMM_STATE_DISCONNECTED without ever calling bt_l2cap_chan_disconnect().
Because the recovery timer was also cancelled and a later UA is ignored in the DISCONNECTED state, the session becomes permanently wedged: the underlying L2CAP channel is never released and the session slot in the fixed bt_rfcomm_pool[CONFIG_BT_MAX_CONN] array is never reclaimed (its conn pointer stays set).
Subsequent bt_rfcomm_dlc_connect() calls on that connection fail with -EINVAL due to the invalid session state, so RFCOMM service is denied for that peer, and repeated occurrences can exhaust the session pool. The DISC frame is peer-controlled over the air, but exploitation requires the peer's DISC to collide with a local-initiated disconnect (a high-complexity timing race). Impact is availability/resource-leak only; there is no memory-safety, confidentiality, or integrity consequence. The defect shipped in released versions (present in v4.4.0 and earlier).
The fix only transitions to DISCONNECTED when the session is not already in DISCONNECTING, preserving the proper L2CAP teardown path.
The IPv6 Neighbor Discovery handlers in subsys/net/ip/ipv6_nbr.c (handle_ra_input, handle_ns_input, handle_na_input) used an incorrect boolean expression that combined the RFC 4861 validity checks with the ICMPv6 code check using the wrong operator precedence: the form was ((length/hop/source/target checks) && (icmp_hdr->code != 0)). Because every legitimate ND message carries ICMPv6 code 0, an attacker setting code == 0 (the normal value) caused the entire predicate to evaluate false, so the packet was never dropped and all of the other checks were silently skipped. The bypassed checks include the mandatory Hop Limit == 255 verification (which proves an ND packet originated on-link and was not forwarded) and, for Router Advertisements, the requirement that the source be a link-local address, as well as multicast-target sanity checks. As a result, an adjacent on-link attacker — and, because the Hop-Limit-255 guard is bypassed, potentially a remote/off-link attacker whose packets would otherwise be rejected — can have forged Router Advertisement, Neighbor Solicitation, and Neighbor Advertisement messages accepted. A forged RA lets the attacker reconfigure the victim's default router, on-link prefixes (SLAAC), MTU, reachable/retransmit timers, and (with CONFIG_NET_IPV6_RA_RDNSS) DNS servers, while forged NS/NA enable neighbor-cache poisoning, enabling man-in-the-middle, traffic redirection, and denial of service. The flaw is an input-validation/authentication weakness rather than a memory-safety issue: the underlying packet-parsing primitives (net_pkt_get_data, net_pkt_read, net_pkt_skip) are independently bounds-safe and the validated length is the true buffer length, so skipping the length check causes no out-of-bounds access. The defect has existed since the logic was introduced in 2018 and shipped in all releases through v4.4.0; it is fixed by splitting the condition so any failing check drops the packet.
Zephyr's HTTP server (subsys/net/lib/http) provides a static-filesystem resource type (HTTP_RESOURCE_TYPE_STATIC_FS, available when CONFIG_FILE_SYSTEM is enabled) that serves files from a configured root directory. Before this fix, both the HTTP/1 and HTTP/2 front-ends placed the raw, attacker-controlled request path into client->url_buffer (assembled in on_url() for HTTP/1 and copied verbatim from the :path pseudo-header for HTTP/2) without resolving ./.. segments. The static-FS handler then built the on-disk filename by directly concatenating the configured root with that raw URL (snprintk(fname, ..., "%s%s", static_fs_detail->fs_path, client->url_buffer) at http_server_http1.c:603 and http_server_http2.c:490) and opened it with fs_open(fname, FS_O_READ). Because the handler is reached via wildcard/leading-dir (fnmatch FNM_LEADING_DIR) or fallback resource matching, a request such as GET /<prefix>/../../<file> is dispatched to the handler and, after the underlying filesystem (e.g. LittleFS/FAT) resolves the .. segments, escapes the configured web root, letting an unauthenticated remote client read arbitrary readable files on the mounted volume (information disclosure). The HTTP server requires no TLS or authentication to reach this path. The fix adds http_server_remove_dot_segments(), which canonicalizes the path portion of the URL before resource lookup in both protocol handlers, neutralizing the traversal. Affects releases v4.0.0 through v4.4.0 for deployments that register a static-filesystem resource.