Zephyrproject: >> Zephyr >> 4.3.1 Security Vulnerabilities
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.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-29
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.
CVSS Score
7.4
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-06-28
The Zephyr Bluetooth LE Audio Basic Audio Profile (BAP) unicast client mishandles peer-supplied ASE state notifications. In unicast_client_ep_qos_state() (subsys/bluetooth/audio/bap_unicast_client.c), the handler writes attacker-controlled QoS fields (interval, framing, phy, sdu, rtn, latency, pd) through the stream->qos pointer with only a stream != NULL guard. stream->qos is NULL for any stream that has been codec-configured via bt_bap_stream_config() but not yet added to a unicast group (it is set only by unicast_group_add_stream()).
A malicious or buggy remote ASCS server, to which the local device is connected as a BAP unicast client, can send a GATT notification announcing the ASE has entered the QoS Configured state while the local endpoint is still in the Codec Configured state — a transition the dispatcher explicitly permits — during that window, causing a write through a NULL pointer and a crash (denial of service). The data written is itself remote-controlled.
The defect shipped in v4.3.0 and v4.4.0 (and earlier). The fix re-points all BAP QoS storage to the always-valid embedded ep->qos struct, eliminating the NULL dereference.
CVSS Score
6.5
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-06-28
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.
CVSS Score
8.7
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-28
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.
CVSS Score
7.5
EPSS Score
0.005
Published
2026-06-25
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.
CVSS Score
6.5
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-06-24
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.
CVSS Score
4.9
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-23
bt_sdp_parse_attribute() in subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/sdp.c validated only that the SDP record buffer held the type-marker byte plus the 2-byte attribute ID (a check of buf->len < 3) but then read a fourth byte, the data-element descriptor (type), via net_buf_simple_pull_u8(). Because net_buf_simple_pull_u8() dereferences buf->data[0] before its only bounds guard (an __ASSERT_NO_MSG that compiles out when CONFIG_ASSERT is disabled, the production default), a record of exactly three bytes (0x09 followed by a 2-byte attribute ID) causes a one-byte read past the end of the logical buffer. The parser is reachable from inbound, remote-controlled data: a Bluetooth BR/EDR peer acting as an SDP server returns discovery-response records that are stored verbatim in the client receive buffer and parsed via the public bt_sdp_get_attr()/bt_sdp_has_attr()/bt_sdp_record_parse() helpers. The over-read is bounded to a single byte that is used only as an internal length selector and is never leaked to the attacker; subsequent length checks then reject the malformed record. Realistic impact is therefore limited to an edge-case denial of service (a fault only if the record ends exactly at a mapped-memory boundary, or a deterministic assert panic when CONFIG_ASSERT=y). Affects Zephyr v4.3.0 and v4.4.0; fixed by adding sizeof(type) to the length check.
CVSS Score
7.1
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-06-23
bt_iso_recv() in subsys/bluetooth/host/iso.c pulled the ISO SDU header (4 bytes) or, when the timestamp flag is set, the timestamped SDU header (8 bytes) from the inbound HCI ISO Data buffer via net_buf_pull_mem() without first checking buf->len. The upstream hci_iso() handler enforces buf->len == the controller-declared ISO Data_Load length, so a malicious or buggy controller / adjacent BLE peer on an established CIS/BIS can present a first-fragment (BT_ISO_START) or single (BT_ISO_SINGLE) PDU shorter than the SDU header. Because net_buf_simple_pull_mem only guards length with __ASSERT_NO_MSG (compiled out when CONFIG_ASSERT is disabled, the production default), the pull underflows buf->len (uint16_t, e.g. 0 - 8 = 0xFFF8) and advances buf->data past valid data: the subsequent reads of hdr->slen and hdr->sn are out-of-bounds reads of adjacent pool memory. For the multi-fragment (START) case the corrupted buffer is retained as iso->rx, and a following CONT/END fragment's net_buf_tailroom() guard underflows to a near-SIZE_MAX value, defeating the bounds check and causing net_buf_add_mem() to memcpy attacker-supplied fragment data far past the RX pool buffer (out-of-bounds write). The flaw affects ISO receive builds (CONFIG_BT_ISO_RX, selected by the default-off LE Audio options BT_ISO_PERIPHERAL/BT_ISO_CENTRAL/BT_ISO_SYNC_RECEIVER) and has existed since the ISO subsystem was introduced (v2.6.0) through v4.4.0. The fix adds explicit buf->len < sizeof(ts_hdr) and buf->len < sizeof(hdr) checks that drop the buffer before pulling.
CVSS Score
7.1
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-06-23
subsys/net/ip/icmpv6.c reads the network interface from a net_pkt after that packet has been handed to net_try_send_data(). In icmpv6_handle_echo_request() and net_icmpv6_send_error(), the post-send statistics update calls net_pkt_iface(reply)/net_pkt_iface(pkt) on the just-sent packet.
The send path (net_try_send_data -> net_if_tx) unreferences and may free the packet back to its memory slab before returning — synchronously in the RX thread when no TX queue is configured (CONFIG_NET_TC_TX_COUNT == 0), and asynchronously the driver/L2 may already have freed it otherwise. net_pkt_iface() therefore dereferences a freed (and possibly reused) net_pkt; with CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE the stale iface pointer is further dereferenced and written through (iface->stats.icmp.sent++), turning the use-after-free read into a write through an attacker-influenceable pointer.
The core stack already documents this hazard in net_core.c ("do not use pkt after that call") and caches iface before sending; the ICMPv6 callers did not.
An unauthenticated remote attacker triggers the flaw simply by sending an ICMPv6 Echo Request (ping) or an IPv6 packet that elicits an ICMPv6 error (unknown next header, fragment reassembly timeout, destination unreachable), leading to denial of service via crash and potential memory corruption. Affected: Zephyr networking with CONFIG_NET_NATIVE_IPV6, roughly v4.2.0 through v4.4.0.
The fix caches the interface pointer before sending and uses it for all statistics updates; the sibling commit 86e21665d46 fixes the identical bug in ICMPv4.
CVSS Score
5.9
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-06-16