CVE-2026-77685zephyrproject zephyr out-of-bounds read
CVE-2026-77685 is a out-of-bounds read in zephyrproject zephyr, rated high (8.3 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis
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 from the same local network segment, without an account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can read the data it protects and take it offline. 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
- Upgrade zephyrproject zephyr to 4.5.0 or later.
- Segment the networks that can reach it.
Description from NVD
The RFCOMM multiplexer control-channel handler in subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/rfcomm.c computed the echo length for a BT_RFCOMM_TEST command as buf->len - 1 and passed it to rfcomm_send_test(), whose length parameter is a uint8_t. A malformed but FCS-valid UIH frame on DLCI 0 can leave buf->len == 0 after rfcomm_handle_msg() pulls the two-byte MCC header, so buf->len - 1 underflows and narrows to 255.
rfcomm_send_test() then copies 255 bytes out of a receive buffer that holds no remaining valid data, and appends them to an outgoing L2CAP PDU allocated with only CONFIG_BT_L2CAP_TX_MTU (253 by default for CONFIG_BT_CLASSIC) bytes of tailroom. The source read runs past the end of the ACL receive buffer into adjacent buffers of the same net_buf pool, and the destination copy overruns the transmit buffer by about eight bytes; net_buf_add_mem() performs no runtime bounds check in ordinary builds, where the underlying __ASSERT_NO_MSG() is compiled out.
The trigger is a single five-byte RFCOMM frame on the multiplexer control channel, which is processed as soon as the L2CAP channel for PSM 3 is established — before any DLC exists and independent of RFCOMM session state. bt_rfcomm_init() registers that L2CAP server with .sec_level = BT_SECURITY_L1, which l2cap_br_conn_security() accepts without any link key from a peer that does not claim host Secure Simple Pairing support, so an unpaired BR/EDR device in radio range of a connectable target with CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM enabled (SPP, HFP, HSP, GOEP and similar profiles all enable it) can reach the defect.
The resulting 255-byte TEST response is transmitted back to the attacker, disclosing roughly 255 bytes of adjacent stack/pool memory — including the contents of neighbouring receive buffers, which an attacker can prime with earlier packets — and the accompanying out-of-bounds write corrupts memory following the transmit buffer, which can crash the Bluetooth host. The request is trivially repeatable, so both the disclosure and the corruption can be driven at will.
Two fixes are needed, and the first on its own does not close the out-of-bounds write. Fix 1 (0040ef781e1d, #115768) strips the FCS byte in rfcomm_recv() and echoes buf->len, rejecting anything over UINT8_MAX, which removes the underflow and the over-read. But rfcomm_make_uih_msg() still allocates the response with bt_l2cap_create_pdu() and never compares the requested length with the buffer's tailroom, so a well-formed TEST command carrying a pattern of about 248 bytes or more still builds a response (3-byte frame header, 2-byte message header, pattern, FCS) larger than the 253 bytes available. A pattern that long can only be received when the RFCOMM L2CAP receive MTU (CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM_L2CAP_MTU, which defaults to CONFIG_BT_BUF_ACL_RX_SIZE) exceeds CONFIG_BT_L2CAP_TX_MTU. The plain BR/EDR defaults (200 against 253) cannot reach it, but from v4.3.0 enabling CONFIG_BT_GOEP raises CONFIG_BT_BUF_ACL_RX_SIZE to 264 (265 from v4.4.0), so GOEP builds with only fix 1 applied still overrun the transmit buffer by up to eight bytes. This includes v4.3.2, the last v4.3 release, which carries fix 1 but will not receive fix 2. Fix 2 (214530895dd3, #118293) checks the tailroom on every RFCOMM PDU allocation and closes this residual write.
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.
Trust boundaries in play
- Local network segment. The attacker must share a network segment with the target.
- Wherever native code reads untrusted data. An attacker who crosses it can crash the process, read memory, or in the worst case run code.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does zephyrproject zephyr run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which network segments can reach them?
- 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.