CVE-2026-90586zephyrproject zephyr uninitialized pointer access
CVE-2026-90586 is a uninitialized pointer access in zephyrproject zephyr, rated high (7.8 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis
What it is
A pointer is used before it is set.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it by someone who can already run code or sign in on the machine, with an ordinary user account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can read the data it protects, change data or behaviour 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 a fixed version for your release line (4.3.2, 4.5.0).
- Limit who can run code or sign in on the hosts that run it.
Description from NVD
The Xtensa MMU userspace port never initialized the per-thread page-table pointer thread->arch.ptables during thread setup, while arch_mem_domain_thread_add() in arch/xtensa/core/ptables.c uses a non-NULL value of that field as its "this thread is migrating from another memory domain" predicate. For a thread whose struct k_thread backing memory is not zeroed, the field holds stale data and the kernel takes the migration branch, passing that stale value to reset_region() as the base of a level-1 page table. The equivalent field on x86 is explicitly cleared in z_x86_userspace_prepare_thread() for exactly this reason; the Xtensa port adopted the predicate without the initialization.
The condition is reachable from an unprivileged user-mode thread on a build with CONFIG_XTENSA_MMU, CONFIG_USERSPACE and dynamically allocated kernel objects. k_object_alloc(K_OBJ_THREAD) is a system call and allocates the thread object from the caller's resource pool without zeroing it, and the k_thread_create() verifier accepts such an object while forcing the K_USER option, so the migration branch is taken whenever the recycled heap bytes at that offset are non-zero. Because a user thread can also allocate, fill and free other kernel objects from the same heap, the stale bytes are groomable rather than merely random.
Walking the bogus table in region_map_update() performs an unguarded index into l2_page_tables_counter[], may copy from and write through the attacker-influenceable level-1 base in dup_l2_table_if_needed(), and finally writes a page-table entry through a second pointer read out of that memory — once per page of the new thread's stack. The result is out-of-bounds reads and writes executed in supervisor mode, ranging from an immediate kernel panic (observed as Xtensa EXCAUSE 13 on Intel ADSP DSP firmware with user threads) to corruption of kernel memory and escape from the user-mode sandbox.
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
- Host boundary. The attacker needs a foothold on the machine first; the flaw turns a small foothold into a bigger one.
- 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 of those hosts also run code or users you do not fully trust?
- 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.