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 asynchronous SNTP client in Zephyr (subsys/net/lib/sntp/sntp.c, sntp_close_async) closed the UDP socket file descriptor directly from the calling thread immediately after detaching it from the network socket service, without synchronizing with the socket-service poll thread.
The socket service thread polls each socket via zvfs_poll, which (in zsock_poll_prepare_ctx) registers a k_poll_event pointing into the socket's net_context (&ctx->recv_q) and then blocks in k_poll without holding a reference or lock. net_context objects are allocated from a fixed pool (contexts[CONFIG_NET_MAX_CONTEXTS]) and reused after close.
When sntp_close_async is invoked from a different thread than the poll thread (in the in-tree consumer subsys/net/lib/config/init_clock_sntp.c, the SNTP timeout handler runs on the system workqueue while the socket service thread is blocked in poll on the same fd), the close frees and may reuse the net_context while the poll thread still has a poller node linked into the freed object, resulting in a use-after-free / object confusion of kernel poll structures.
The SNTP timeout path is the normal no-response failure mode, so a network peer or off-path attacker who drops or delays the SNTP/NTP response can drive the racing close repeatedly (and periodically with NET_CONFIG_SNTP_INIT_RESYNC). The most likely consequence is a crash of the networking thread (denial of service), with potential memory corruption when the freed context slot is reallocated.
The fix defers the close to the socket service thread itself via net_socket_service_close (NET_SOCKET_SERVICE_CLOSE_SOCKETS), so the same thread that polls performs the close, eliminating the race. Affected releases: v4.2.0 through v4.4.0.
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.
The USB CDC-NCM device class (subsys/usb/device_next/class/usbd_cdc_ncm.c) ignores the return value of usbd_ep_enqueue() in its ethernet transmit callback cdc_ncm_send(). When the enqueue fails, the function still calls k_sem_take(&data->sync_sem, K_FOREVER), blocking on a completion semaphore that is only ever signaled from the bulk-IN transfer-completion callback. Because nothing was enqueued, that callback never fires and the calling thread — a shared network traffic-class TX thread — deadlocks permanently while holding the interface TX lock, halting transmission until reboot (and leaking the transmit buffer).
The enqueue fails under conditions controlled by the attached USB host: usbd_ep_enqueue() returns -EPERM whenever the bus is suspended (a standard, persistent host operation), and the underlying udc_ep_enqueue() returns -EPERM/-ENODEV on disconnect, bus reset, or endpoint disable. The cdc_ncm_send() guard only checks the DATA_IFACE_ENABLED and IFACE_UP flags, not the suspended state, so a packet transmitted while the host holds the bus suspended reaches the failing enqueue and deadlocks the TX path.
The realistic trigger is a bus suspend that occurs while the exported network interface is active and has traffic to send — host sleep, USB selective/auto-suspend, or hub power management — after which any device-originated packet deadlocks the path, recoverable only by reboot. The impact is a persistent loss of the virtual network connection between the host's NCM interface and the Zephyr device; because the deadlocked thread is a shared traffic-class TX thread, egress on other network interfaces can stall as well. There is no memory corruption or information disclosure.
The defect was introduced with the CDC-NCM driver and shipped in releases through v4.4.0; it is fixed by checking the usbd_ep_enqueue() return value and freeing the buffer before the blocking wait.
Zephyr's BSD-sockets getaddrinfo() implementation (subsys/net/lib/sockets/getaddrinfo.c) passes a pointer to a stack-allocated state object (struct getaddrinfo_state ai_state) as the user_data of an asynchronous DNS resolver query. The socket layer waits on a semaphore with a timeout deliberately set slightly longer than the resolver's own per-query timeout. When that semaphore wait nonetheless times out (-EAGAIN) - which can occur when the resolver's timeout work is delayed by workqueue contention, or in the documented multi-retry configuration where CONFIG_NET_SOCKETS_DNS_TIMEOUT exceeds CONFIG_NET_SOCKETS_DNS_BACKOFF_INTERVAL - the pre-fix code retries the query (goto again) without cancelling the previous one and without resetting the semaphore.
The previous query slot remains active in the resolver with its callback and the stack pointer as user_data, and ai_state->dns_id is overwritten so the stale query can no longer be cancelled. A subsequent DNS response delivered over UDP and matched by its 16-bit transaction id (in dispatcher_cb()/dns_read()), or the resolver's own delayed query-timeout work, then invokes dns_resolve_cb() against the now out-of-scope stack frame, writing through the stale pointer (state->status, state->idx, state->ai_arr[], and k_sem_give()).
Because the triggering response is network-delivered and its 16-bit id is spoofable/replayable by an on- or off-path attacker, this is a network-influenceable use-after-return that can corrupt reused stack memory, leading to crashes/denial of service or memory corruption.
The fix cancels the timed-out query by name and type before retrying and resets the local semaphore, eliminating the stale callback path. Affected: Zephyr v4.0.0 through v4.4.0.
Zephyr's IP socket recvmsg() implementation (subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c, insert_pktinfo()) validated the user-supplied ancillary (msg_control) buffer using only the payload length (msg->msg_controllen < pktinfo_len) before writing a full control message consisting of an aligned cmsg header plus the payload. Because the check omitted the cmsg header size, a control buffer whose length falls in the under-checked window (e.g. 16-27 bytes for IPv4 IP_PKTINFO on a 64-bit target, where a single element actually occupies 28 bytes) passes the guard yet causes a fixed-size out-of-bounds write of up to one cmsg header (~12 bytes) past the end of the buffer.
Under CONFIG_USERSPACE the recvmsg verifier allocates a kernel-heap copy of the control buffer sized to msg_controllen and runs the implementation against it, so the overflow corrupts kernel heap memory and is triggerable from an unprivileged userspace thread; in supervisor mode it corrupts the caller's buffer.
The path is reachable on a UDP/IP socket with IP_PKTINFO/IPV6_RECVPKTINFO (or hoplimit/timestamping) enabled when the application calls recvmsg() with an undersized control buffer and a datagram is received; part of the overwritten bytes (the destination IP in ipi_addr) is influenced by the received packet.
The fix makes the capacity check use NET_CMSG_SPACE(pktinfo_len) (aligned header + aligned data) and returns -ENOMEM when the buffer is too small. Affected: v3.6.0 through v4.4.0.
Zephyr's IPv6 network stack can be prevented from receiving or processing future incoming packets by sending a small number of maliciously fragmented IPv6 packets. When such a packet is handled by the fragment-header processing path, the associated RX network packet buffer (allocated from a memory slab) is not released back to the pool. Repeating the malicious packet exhausts all RX buffer slots, after which the device can no longer obtain RX buffers and stops receiving traffic, resulting in a denial of service.
The Zephyr PL011 UART driver (drivers/serial/uart_pl011.c) contains an unbounded software loop in pl011_irq_tx_enable() that repeatedly invokes the interrupt-driven application callback while the TX interrupt mask bit (PL011_IMSC_TXIM) is set, to work around the controller's level-transition TX-interrupt behavior.
When CTS hardware flow control is enabled (devicetree hw-flow-control or runtime UART_CFG_FLOW_CTRL_RTS_CTS) and the wired serial peer de-asserts CTS, the controller stops draining the TX FIFO; pl011_fifo_fill() then returns 0 on every call while the application still has pending data and therefore never disables the TX interrupt. The loop condition never clears, so the thread that called uart_irq_tx_enable() (e.g. h4_send() in the Bluetooth HCI H4 driver) spins indefinitely, hanging the executing context and stalling the transport — a denial of service (CWE-835).
An attacker controlling the device attached to the UART's CTS line can trigger the hang by withholding CTS during transmission. Because that peer is the device wired to the UART — which may be a removable or external module (e.g. an off-board Bluetooth controller on the HCI H4 link) rather than a permanently-bonded on-PCB part — the attack vector is scored Adjacent (AV:A) rather than Physical; the security subcommittee should confirm the vector against the specific deployment. Impact is availability only; there is no memory-safety, confidentiality, or integrity consequence.
The vulnerable loop was introduced in commit b783bc8448ef (Feb 2025) and shipped in releases v4.1.0 through v4.4.0. The fix breaks out of the loop when CTS is blocking and arms the CTS modem-status interrupt to resume transmission when CTS re-asserts.
The Zephyr ext2 filesystem driver (subsys/fs/ext2) trusted the on-disk directory entry fields de_rec_len and de_name_len when walking a directory block. ext2_fetch_direntry() guarded only with de_name_len > EXT2_MAX_FILE_NAME, but de_name_len is a uint8_t and EXT2_MAX_FILE_NAME is 255, so the check is always false; the function then memcpy'd up to 255 name bytes and the lookup/readdir paths advanced traversal by an unvalidated de_rec_len. Each directory block is read into a block_size-sized slab buffer, and block_off can be driven near the block end by preceding entries' rec_len, so the 8-byte header read and the subsequent name memcpy can read up to ~263 bytes past the end of the block buffer into adjacent heap/slab memory. On the readdir path those bytes are returned to the caller in fs_dirent.name, leaking adjacent kernel heap memory; a de_rec_len of 0 also causes a zero-progress infinite loop (denial of service), and the unlink path's memmove(de, next, next_reclen) over unvalidated records is an additional OOB read/write source. The defect is reached by any path-based operation (open, stat, unlink, rename, mkdir) or directory listing on a mounted ext2 volume, so a crafted or corrupted ext2 image on attacker-supplied storage (SD card, USB mass storage, or otherwise mounted image) triggers it. Affected: Zephyr ext2 from its introduction in v3.5.0 through v4.4.0. The fix validates rec_len and name_len in the parser and rejects entries whose header does not fit the remaining block or whose rec_len crosses the block boundary in every traversal caller.