CVE-2026-126957zephyrproject-rtos Zephyr out-of-bounds read
CVE-2026-126957 is a out-of-bounds read in zephyrproject-rtos Zephyr, rated medium (6.9 on CVSS 4.0).
Why this priority: Medium severity, with no exploitation signal.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Received
What it is
Code reads past the end of a buffer, leaking memory contents or crashing. A subtraction wraps below zero and produces a huge value used as a size or index.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, without an account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
The direct impact is limited: partial access to data or a partial outage. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker crash the process, read memory, or in the worst case run code.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet.
What to do
- No fixed version is listed yet. Find every place zephyrproject-rtos Zephyr runs, watch the references for a fix, and plan a replacement if it is no longer supported.
- While there is no fix, keep it off the internet or behind a VPN, allowlist or authenticating proxy.
Description from NVD
An integer underflow in Zephyr's IPv4 option handling allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to read stack memory. When replying to an ICMP Echo Request that carries an IPv4 Record Route or Timestamp option, icmpv4_update_record_route() and icmpv4_update_time_stamp() in subsys/net/ip/icmpv4.c compute the length of the already recorded data as ptr - ptr_offset in uint8_t arithmetic. The attacker-controlled Pointer field is checked against the option length but not against the RFC 791 minimum (4 for Record Route, 5 for Timestamp), so a smaller value wraps the length to up to 252 bytes. net_pkt_write() then reads past the 40-byte opt_data stack buffer and up to 213 bytes of stack memory, which can include stack and heap pointers, are returned in the ICMP Echo Reply. A single packet triggers the leak and the device does not crash, so it can be repeated. Devices built with CONFIG_NET_IPV4_HDR_OPTIONS, which CONFIG_NET_IPV4_IGMP selects, are affected.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Native code: operating systems, browsers and firmware. The flaw sits wherever native code reads untrusted data.
- Network appliances and media or file parsers. The flaw sits wherever native code reads untrusted data.
- Error responses, logs and debug endpoints. The flaw sits between internal data and whoever can read the response or log.
- APIs that over-share. The flaw sits between internal data and whoever can read the response or log.
Trust boundaries in play
- Internet-facing entry points. No account is needed. Any instance reachable from outside your perimeter, through a load balancer, gateway, VPN or exposed admin port, is in scope.
- Wherever native code reads untrusted data. An attacker who crosses it can crash the process, read memory, or in the worst case run code.
- Between internal data and whoever can read the response or log. An attacker who crosses it can learn data or internals that help a follow-up attack.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does zephyrproject-rtos Zephyr run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.