CVE-2026-10638
MediumCVSS 5.9Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk28th percentile - higher than 28% of all known CVEs
Summary
A use-after-free vulnerability exists in Zephyr's networking stack (subsys/net/ip/icmpv6.c) when handling ICMPv6 packets. After sending an echo reply or ICMPv6 error, the code reads the network interface from a freed packet, leading to a dangling pointer dereference.
Risk Assessment
An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger a denial of service (crash) by sending a crafted ICMPv6 Echo Request or an IPv6 packet that elicits an ICMPv6 error. With per-interface statistics enabled (CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE), the flaw allows writing through an attacker-controlled pointer, potentially causing memory corruption.
Recommendation
Immediately update Zephyr to a version containing the fix (commit 86e21665d46 for ICMPv4 and the corresponding ICMPv6 patch). If updating is not possible, temporarily disable CONFIG_NET_NATIVE_IPV6 or restrict trusted ICMPv6 traffic sources.
Other vulnerabilities in Zephyr
See all- CVE-2026-10772Unknown
This CVE has been rejected as a duplicate. The described vulnerability involved incorrect permission checking in the Bluetooth GATT notify/indicate paths in the Zephyr stack, but was already reported as CVE-2026-2411.
- CVE-2026-10676Unknown
CVE-2026-10676 has been withdrawn as analysis determined that the reported defect is not reachable in any released version of Zephyr. In every supported release, the affected value is corrected before use.
- CVE-2026-5067Critical
Zephyr OS has a memory corruption vulnerability in the HTTP server WebSocket upgrade path. An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger it by sending a crafted Sec-WebSocket-Key header. The bounded copy does not guarantee NUL termination, leading to out-of-bounds read/write on stack.
- CVE-2026-13735Low
Zephyr's WireGuard implementation mishandled keepalive packets. A type-4 message with a 16-byte payload (empty plaintext plus Poly1305 tag) was accepted without tag verification because wg_process_data_message() returned early before calling wg_decrypt_packet(). An attacker could send a forged keepalive without knowing the session key.
- CVE-2026-13734Medium
Vulnerability in Zephyr's WireGuard VPN: wg_process_data_message() validated the anti-replay counter too late, after committing peer-state changes (address update, timers, key rotation). An attacker can re-inject a captured packet, leading to endpoint hijacking and session disruption.
- CVE-2026-13212High
The Zephyr virtio driver does not validate the descriptor-chain head id written by the virtio device into the used ring. A malicious virtio backend can supply an out-of-range id, causing an out-of-bounds read and invocation of an attacker-controlled function pointer in the guest's interrupt context. This enables control-flow hijacking or a reliable crash.
- CVE-2026-12634Medium
A vulnerability in the NVS backend of the Zephyr settings subsystem (settings_nvs.c) causes an out-of-bounds stack write. The nvs_read() function returns the full entry length, which can exceed the buffer size, and the code uses this value as an index for writing a NUL character, leading to a write past the buffer (CWE-787).
- CVE-2026-12632Medium
A vulnerability in Zephyr RTOS's PTP receive handler allows a remote attacker to trigger an out-of-bounds read by sending a crafted PTP packet with an invalid message type (0xE or 0xF). The lack of an upper-bound check on the msg_size[] array index leads to reading beyond the array and subsequent memory operations, potentially causing a crash or limited memory corruption.
- CVE-2026-12630Medium
Zephyr's 6LoWPAN IPHC uncompression code contains an out-of-bounds read in get_ihpc_inlined_size() (subsys/net/ip/6lo.c). The destination inline size is looked up in da_inline_size_table (13 entries) using an index built from the M, DAC and DAM bits of the IPHC dispatch word; reserved combinations 13, 14 and 15 are not bounds-checked and read past the end of the table.
- CVE-2026-12366High
A use-after-free vulnerability exists in Zephyr's dynamic kernel-object disposal path. The unref_check() function frees object storage when the reference count reaches zero, but for timers (K_OBJ_TIMER) it does not cancel the active timeout, leaving a dangling node in the global timeout queue. When the timer expires, the kernel invokes the expiration handler on freed memory, causing a write to freed heap.
Original NVD description (English source)
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.

