VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2026-10640

The subsequent net_pkt_iface(pkt) reads pkt->iface from the freed slab block, and with CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE enabled that loaded pointer is dereferenced to increment iface->stats.icmp.sent, a use-after-free (CWE-416).

HIGH 7.1EPSS 0.37%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.37%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

Zephyr's IPv6 Neighbor Discovery send paths (net_ipv6_send_na, net_ipv6_send_ns, net_ipv6_send_rs in subsys/net/ip/ipv6_nbr.c) updated the per-interface ICMP-sent statistics by calling net_pkt_iface(pkt) after net_send_data(pkt) had already returned successfully. On the success path the network stack owns and releases the packet's reference (the L2/driver send unrefs it, e.g. ethernet_send -> net_pkt_unref), so for a freshly allocated packet with refcount 1 the net_pkt slab block can be freed before the statistics line runs (synchronously when no TX queue thread is configured, or via a concurrent TX thread otherwise). The subsequent net_pkt_iface(pkt) reads pkt->iface from the freed slab block, and with CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE enabled that loaded pointer is dereferenced to increment iface->stats.icmp.sent, a use-after-free (CWE-416). If the slab block was reallocated in the meantime the read/increment targets unrelated or attacker-influenced memory, yielding corrupted statistics, a fault/crash (denial of service), or potential limited memory corruption. The vulnerable Neighbor Advertisement path is reachable by any unauthenticated on-link node simply by sending ICMPv6 Neighbor Solicitations to a Zephyr node with native IPv6 enabled (handle_ns_input -> net_ipv6_send_na). Affected from v3.3.0 through v4.4.0; the fix uses the already-available iface argument instead of touching the sent packet. Configurations without per-interface statistics dereference only a global counter and are not affected by the memory-safety aspect.

CVSS 3.1: 7.1 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
EPSS: 0.37% probability · 30th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-416
Affected: zephyrproject/zephyr
Source: vulnerabilities@zephyrproject.org

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.