Race condition in Zephyr ITE SHI backend allows out-of-bounds read
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
The ITE IT8xxx2 SHI host-command backend in Zephyr copies a request header into the shared receive buffer before checking its length. A race lets a second SPI transaction overwrite that buffer while the previous request is still being processed, so a command handler can receive an oversized input length and read out of bounds (CWE-362). An attacker needs the ability to drive the SHI SPI bus, such as from a compromised host OS or with physical access, and must win a timing race.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-04
Description from the CNA
The ITE IT8xxx2 SHI host-command backend (subsys/mgmt/ec_host_cmd/backends/ec_host_cmd_backend_shi_ite.c) copied the 8-byte host-command request header from the SPI Rx FIFO directly into the shared receive buffer data->in_msg and only afterwards checked the protocol version and the derived packet length. The interrupt handler also accepted a chip-select assertion and an Rx-valid-length (RVLI) interrupt in any driver state other than SHI_STATE_DISABLED, so a new header could be parsed while the host-command thread was still processing the previous request out of the very same buffer. The host processor is the SPI controller and drives both chip select and the clock. After sending a well-formed request it can immediately de-assert chip select — which returns the driver to the ready state and re-enables the FIFO — and start a second transaction carrying a header with data_len = 0xFFFF. Those eight bytes are written into in_msg before the oversized length is rejected, so they land in a buffer whose contents verify_rx() in subsys/mgmt/ec_host_cmd/ec_host_cmd_handler.c has already validated. If this lands in the window before the host-command thread executes args.input_buf_size = rx_header->data_len, the framework hands the registered command handler a 65535-byte input length over a 256-byte buffer. The result is an out-of-bounds read of up to roughly 64 KiB beyond the request buffer: command handlers that copy or echo input_buf_size bytes disclose adjacent embedded-controller memory back to the host or overflow the response buffer, and a read past the end of SRAM faults the controller. The same race also allows cmd_id and cmd_ver to be swapped after checksum verification and after handler lookup. Exploitation requires the ability to drive the inter-processor SHI bus (a compromised host OS or physical access to the SPI lines) and winning a timing race, which the SPI controller can retry indefinitely. The fix parses the header into a local struct ec_host_cmd_request_header and copies it into in_msg only after the length has been bounded by sizeof(data->in_msg), and ignores chip-select and RVLI interrupts outside SHI_STATE_READY_TO_RECV/SHI_STATE_RECEIVING. A residual, bounded race remains: an end-of-transaction interrupt still resets the state to ready while the host-command thread owns the buffer, so a valid second request can still overwrite the in-flight request's contents, unlike the NPCX backend which parks in SHI_STATE_CNL_RESP_NOT_RDY while the buffer is in use.
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 | 3.3.0 to before 4.3.2; 4.4.0 to before 4.5.0 | 4.3.2, 4.5.0 | Patch available | CNA |
- zephyr Vendorzephyrproject Affected 3.3.0 to before 4.3.2; 4.4.0 to before 4.5.0 Fixed in 4.3.2, 4.5.0 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
Update Zephyr to 4.3.2 for versions from 3.3.0 before 4.3.2, or to 4.5.0 for versions from 4.4.0 before 4.5.0. The sources list no advisory identifiers for these fixes.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-04
- Fix · CNA zephyr (zephyrproject) Fixed in 4.3.2, 4.5.0
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, 4.5.0
4 records Highest priority Priority LOW 4 LOW
Other records, highest priority first
- TI-2026-69871 Integer overflow in Zephyr kernel object allocation enables heap corruptionPriority LOW 39
- TI-2026-69875 Type confusion in Zephyr device_deinit system call allows kernel code executionPriority LOW 35
- TI-2026-69874 ARM64 MMU reuses in-use ASIDs, breaking memory domain isolation in ZephyrPriority LOW 31
Timeline
- 2026-10-09 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-19571
- 2026-10-10 CISA SSVC decision points changed
- 2026-10-10 Priority changed: MEDIUM → LOW
- 2026-11-04 Fix available: [email protected] · CNA
References
Patch 1
Other 1
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Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences