UpdateHub: race condition on shared context causes out-of-bounds write and DoS
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · Low
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
The UpdateHub management subsystem (subsys/mgmt/updatehub/updatehub.c) drives every update operation through a single file-scope ctx structure that holds the CoAP block context, payload buffer, status code, socket, and a one-element poll-fd array fds[1]. Access to ctx was not serialized, and prepare_fds() wrote ctx.fds[ctx.nfds] and incremented ctx.nfds with no bounds check. Two independent paths mutate ctx concurrently: the background autohandler running on the system workqueue, and user-triggered operations reached through the updatehub run shell command, direct API calls, or — since the operations are exposed as syscalls — userspace threads. When a second flow enters prepare_fds() while ctx.nfds is already 1, the write lands one element past the array; by struct layout it overlaps the adjacent ctx.sock/ctx.nfds members. More broadly, the unsynchronized sharing lets two flows interleave connection setup and teardown, double-closing a socket descriptor or scribbling the shared buffers. The result is corruption of the update subsystem's internal state and denial of service of the firmware-update path; the out-of-bounds write is contained within the ctx structure and there is no demonstrated path to memory outside it or to code execution. Triggering requires a local actor able to invoke update operations (or, with CONFIG_USERSPACE, an unprivileged userspace thread) and to win a timing race against the background handler; remote peers cannot control the race timing. The fix serializes the entry points with a mutex and adds a bounds check to prepare_fds().
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| zephyrproject | zephyr | 2.0.0 to before 4.3.2; 4.4.0 to before 4.4.2 | 4.3.2, 4.4.2 | Patch available | CNA |
- zephyr Vendorzephyrproject Affected 2.0.0 to before 4.3.2; 4.4.0 to before 4.4.2 Fixed in 4.3.2, 4.4.2 Patch available CNA
CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1
Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.
| CPE | Versions | Role | Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:o:zephyrproject:zephyr:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | — | — | zephyrproject |
- cpe:2.3:o:zephyrproject:zephyr:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·zephyrproject
Remediation
- Fix · CNA zephyr (zephyrproject) Fixed in 4.3.2, 4.4.2
Fixed in the same release
Records fixed by the same vendor advisory or release, as the CNA lists them.
- Release ·
zephyrproject zephyr 4.3.2, 4.4.2
4 records Highest priority Priority LOW 4 LOW
Other records, highest priority first
- TI-2026-10193 NULL-pointer dereference in UpdateHub OTA agent on empty inner metadata array (remote DoS)Priority LOW 39
- TI-2026-10194 Socket file-descriptor leak in UpdateHub OTA client start_coap_client() leading to resource-exhaustion DoSPriority LOW 18
- TI-2026-10192 UpdateHub probe: uninitialized-heap out-of-bounds read of network-supplied metadataPriority LOW 18
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-11812
- 2026-11-04 Fix available: [email protected] · CNA
References
Patch 1
Other 1
More zephyrproject vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-04422 Out-of-bounds read/write in HTTP WebSocket upgrade via non-null-terminated Sec-WebSocket-Key CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2026-01361 dns: memory‑safety issue in the DNS name parser CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2026-09174 Unterminated URI buffer causes out-of-bounds read in LwM2M firmware pull (Package URI) CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-09168 Stack buffer overflow in `net_ipaddr_parse()` IPv4 address-with-port parsing in `subsys/net/ip/utils.c` CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2024-09625 net: lib: http_server: Buffer Under-read CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.6
- TI-2021-02863 Usb bluetooth device ACL read cb buffer overflow CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.6
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences