Zephyrproject: >> Zephyr >> 2.0.0 Security Vulnerabilities
Zephyr's IPv6 forwarding path re-sent routed unicast packets without ever decrementing the IPv6 hop limit. Both routing branches of ipv6_route_packet() (subsys/net/ip) were affected: the explicit-route path (net_route_packet()) and the on-link cross-interface path (net_route_packet_if()). Each set the packet forwarding flag and called net_send_data() with the hop limit untouched and no expiry check.
Per RFC 8200 the hop-limit decrement is the mechanism that bounds packet lifetime and terminates routing loops; without it, a device acting as an IPv6 router relays looping packets indefinitely. An on-path attacker who can induce or exploit a transient L3 loop turns it into a permanent forwarding storm, causing CPU/bandwidth resource exhaustion (availability DoS) on the forwarder and adjacent links; path-discovery and loop diagnostics that rely on hop-limit expiry are also defeated.
Affected configurations. In every affected release the forwarding path is reached via CONFIG_NET_ROUTE (enabled by default when CONFIG_NET_IPV6_NBR_CACHE is set), together with CONFIG_NET_ROUTING for cross-interface routing. Note that CONFIG_NET_IPV6_FORWARDING and CONFIG_NET_IPV4_FORWARDING — which appear in the fix and in this advisory's evidence notes — were introduced after v4.4.0, when the routing options were split and renamed; they do not exist in any affected release. When auditing a v4.4.1-or-earlier configuration, look for CONFIG_NET_ROUTE and CONFIG_NET_ROUTING.
IPv4 is not affected in any release. The IPv4 forwarding path (net_route_ipv4_packet() in route_ipv4.c) was added after v4.4.0 and has never shipped in a release. Its TTL decrement and IPv4 header-checksum recomputation landed on main as part of the same fix, so the evidence notes below discuss it, but no released version is reachable by way of IPv4.
Affected releases are v1.8.0 through v4.4.1: v1.8.0 introduced net_route_packet() and v2.2.0 added net_route_packet_if(), and neither decremented the hop limit. v4.3.1 carries the explicit-route fix but not the on-link one, so it is affected as well. Fixed on main by 7d8f1afa7345 (explicit-route path) and 589eadc74efa (on-link path).
CVSS Score
5.8
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-07-31
The DesignWare SPI driver (drivers/spi/spi_dw.c) computed the SPI BAUDR clock divider as info->clock_frequency / config->frequency without validating config->frequency.
spi_transceive is a Zephyr __syscall and its verify handler (drivers/spi/spi_handlers.c) copies the caller-supplied spi_config from userspace without checking the frequency field, so a userspace thread that has been granted access to a DesignWare SPI device kernel object can pass frequency = 0 and trigger an unsigned integer divide-by-zero in spi_dw_configure().
On Cortex-M Mainline (SCB->CCR.DIV_0_TRP is set in z_arm_fault_init()) and on ARC (a dedicated __ev_div_zero vector) this raises a CPU exception, resulting in a kernel fault and local denial of service.
The fix rejects zero frequency and frequencies above clock_frequency / 2 (the DesignWare SSI databook minimum SCKDIV of 2) with -EINVAL. The defect affects all Zephyr releases up to and including v4.4.0; exploitation requires CONFIG_USERSPACE=y and an unprivileged thread already granted SPI driver permission. There is no memory-corruption or information-disclosure impact.
CVSS Score
3.3
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-07-21
The CONFIG_USERSPACE syscall verifier z_vrfy_k_poll() in kernel/poll.c allocates a kernel-side copy of the user-supplied k_poll_event[] via z_thread_malloc() and then validates each event's object handle. Before this fix, validation used K_OOPS(K_SYSCALL_OBJ(...)) inline inside the loop, which kills the calling thread without freeing events_copy.
A user thread can pass num_events >= 1 with a forged object handle to leak the allocation; because newly spawned user threads inherit the parent's resource_pool (kernel/thread.c), an attacker spawns sacrificial threads to repeat the leak until the shared kernel heap is exhausted. Once depleted, legitimate kernel allocations from that pool (k_queue alloc nodes, k_msgq buffers, future k_poll calls, etc.) fail, causing a system-level denial of service.
The fix replaces each inline K_OOPS with a conditional goto oops_free so the buffer is freed before the thread is killed. Affects Zephyr releases from v1.12.0 (when k_poll was first exposed to user mode) through v4.4.1.
CVSS Score
6.5
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-07-21
The CONFIG_USERSPACE verification handler for the k_thread_name_copy() system call (z_vrfy_k_thread_name_copy() in kernel/thread.c) calls k_object_find() on the caller-supplied thread pointer and then dereferences the returned struct k_object without checking it for NULL. k_object_find() returns NULL whenever the supplied pointer is not a registered (static or dynamic) kernel object.
The pre-fix guard tested thread == NULL instead of ko == NULL, so an unprivileged user-mode thread that invokes k_thread_name_copy() with any non-NULL but unregistered pointer (e.g. an arbitrary address) passes the NULL test, after which the verifier reads ko->type through a NULL pointer.
Because the syscall verifier runs in supervisor mode, this NULL dereference is a kernel-mode fault that halts or reboots the system, allowing untrusted user code to crash the kernel across the userspace security boundary (denial of service). The marshaller passes the thread argument to the verifier without any prior K_SYSCALL_OBJ validation, so the bad pointer reaches the defect directly.
The flaw affects builds with CONFIG_USERSPACE and CONFIG_THREAD_NAME enabled and has been present since the special-case lookup was introduced around v2.0.0; it is present in v4.4.0 and earlier. The fix changes the guard to check the k_object_find() return value (ko == NULL) before dereferencing it.
CVSS Score
5.5
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-07-14
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.
CVSS Score
8.1
EPSS Score
0.005
Published
2026-07-12
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.
CVSS Score
7.8
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-07-12
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").
CVSS Score
3.7
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-07-05
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.
CVSS Score
3.1
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-30
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.
CVSS Score
8.1
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-06-29
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
0.003
Published
2026-06-25
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