Skip to main content

Zephyr RTOS CVE-2026-10774

| EUVDEUVD-2026-52002 MEDIUM
Memory Leak (CWE-401)
2026-08-02 zephyr
6.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
Share

Severity by source

Vendor (zephyr) PRIMARY
LOW
qualitative
NVD
6.5 MEDIUM
AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI
2.4 LOW

Bluetooth Mesh adjacency (AV:A), provisioner credential required (PR:H), and purely availability impact via slot exhaustion reversible by reboot (A:L) justify this vector.

3.1 AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
4.0 AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (zephyr).

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Adjacent
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

4
Severity Changed
Aug 10, 2026 - 14:37 NVD
LOW MEDIUM
CVSS changed
Aug 10, 2026 - 14:37 NVD
2.4 (LOW) 6.5 (MEDIUM)
Source Code Evidence Fetched
Aug 02, 2026 - 15:21 vuln.today
Analysis Generated
Aug 02, 2026 - 15:21 vuln.today

DescriptionNVD

Zephyr's Bluetooth Mesh subnet key management leaks one PSA Crypto key slot on every subnet-key teardown. In subsys/bluetooth/mesh/subnet.c, net_keys_create() imports the Private Beacon Key into a PSA key slot under CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS (enabled by default), but subnet_keys_destroy() guarded the matching psa_destroy_key() with CONFIG_BT_MESH_V1d1. That Kconfig symbol was removed when explicit Mesh 1.0.1 support was dropped, so the destroy branch became permanently dead code and the import is never balanced by a destroy.

The imbalanced teardown is reached every time subnet keys are destroyed: deleting a subnet (Config Server NetKey Delete), completing a Key Refresh Procedure (which retires the old key set), and resetting/re-provisioning the node. The over-the-air triggers are processed only under the node's device key, so they are exercisable by the provisioner or network administrator that owns the node, reachable over the Bluetooth Mesh network.

With the default CONFIG_MBEDTLS_PSA_KEY_SLOT_COUNT of 16, repeated add/delete or key-refresh cycles exhaust the shared PSA key-slot pool after roughly a dozen rounds. Once exhausted, bt_mesh_private_beacon_key() and thus subnet creation fail: the node can no longer add subnets or complete key refresh, and other PSA crypto consumers on the device may be starved, until the device is rebooted. The fix aligns the destroy guard with the import guard (CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS) so each slot is freed.

AnalysisAI

PSA Crypto key slot exhaustion in Zephyr's Bluetooth Mesh subnet.c permanently leaks one key slot on every subnet key teardown when CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS is enabled (the default). Devices running Zephyr 3.6.0 through 4.4.x are affected: a provisioner or network administrator with the node's device key can trigger the leak via Config Server NetKey Delete, Key Refresh Procedure, or reprovisioning over the Bluetooth Mesh network. With the default pool of 16 PSA key slots, roughly a dozen such operations exhaust the pool, preventing subnet creation and potentially starving other on-device PSA consumers until a reboot. No public exploit or CISA KEV listing exists; real-world impact is constrained by the high-privilege and proximity requirements.

Technical ContextAI

Zephyr RTOS (cpe:2.3:a:zephyrproject:zephyr:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) implements Bluetooth Mesh in subsys/bluetooth/mesh/subnet.c. The PSA Crypto API allocates opaque key slots from a shared pool sized by CONFIG_MBEDTLS_PSA_KEY_SLOT_COUNT (default 16). net_keys_create() calls bt_mesh_private_beacon_key() - which imports the Private Beacon Key via psa_import_key() - whenever CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS is defined (enabled by default). The balancing psa_destroy_key() in subnet_keys_destroy() was historically gated on CONFIG_BT_MESH_V1d1, a Kconfig symbol that was removed when explicit Mesh 1.0.1 support was dropped. The destroy branch therefore became unreachable dead code, producing a classic CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime) resource leak at the PSA key-slot layer. The commit diff confirms the one-line fix: changing the preprocessor guard from CONFIG_BT_MESH_V1d1 to CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS so allocation and deallocation are symmetrically conditioned.

RemediationAI

Upgrade to Zephyr 4.5.0 or any later release containing commit f573da9f53630082ae95fcfd39fb021fe15f7abd, which changes the preprocessor guard in subnet_keys_destroy() from CONFIG_BT_MESH_V1d1 to CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS, symmetrically conditioning the psa_destroy_key() call to match the psa_import_key() call in net_keys_create(). The patch is documented at https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/f573da9f53630082ae95fcfd39fb021fe15f7abd. For deployments that cannot upgrade immediately, two compensating controls exist with trade-offs: (1) Disable CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS in the build configuration - this eliminates the leak entirely but removes Private Beacon functionality, which is required for enhanced privacy in Mesh 1.1 networks; (2) Increase CONFIG_MBEDTLS_PSA_KEY_SLOT_COUNT beyond the default of 16 to slow exhaustion rate - this delays but does not eliminate the leak, and consumes additional RAM proportional to slot count. Restrict Config Server NetKey Delete and Key Refresh Procedure messages to trusted provisioners as an operational control.

More in Zephyr

View all
CVE-2023-4260 CRITICAL POC
10.0 Sep 27

Potential off-by-one buffer overflow vulnerability in the Zephyr fuse file system. Rated critical severity (CVSS 10.0),

CVE-2023-5055 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Nov 21

Possible variant of CVE-2021-3434 in function le_ecred_reconf_req. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerabilit

CVE-2023-4257 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Oct 13

Unchecked user input length in /subsys/net/l2/wifi/wifi_shell.c can cause buffer overflows. Rated critical severity (CVS

CVE-2023-3725 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Oct 06

Potential buffer overflow vulnerability in the Zephyr CAN bus subsystem. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulner

CVE-2021-3323 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Oct 12

Integer Underflow in 6LoWPAN IPHC Header Uncompression in Zephyr. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability

CVE-2021-3625 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Oct 05

Buffer overflow in Zephyr USB DFU DNLOAD. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable

CVE-2021-3319 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Oct 05

DOS: Incorrect 802154 Frame Validation for Omitted Source / Dest Addresses. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vul

CVE-2018-1000800 CRITICAL POC
9.8 Sep 06

zephyr-rtos version 1.12.0 contains a NULL base pointer reference vulnerability in sys_ring_buf_put(), sys_ring_buf_get(

CVE-2023-4264 CRITICAL POC
9.6 Sep 27

Potential buffer overflow vulnerabilities n the Zephyr Bluetooth subsystem. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.6), this vul

CVE-2026-1678 CRITICAL POC
9.4 Mar 05

Buffer overflow in Zephyr RTOS dns_unpack_name() function causing OOB writes. PoC available.

CVE-2024-1638 CRITICAL POC
9.1 Feb 19

The documentation specifies that the BT_GATT_PERM_READ_LESC and BT_GATT_PERM_WRITE_LESC defines for a Bluetooth characte

CVE-2023-5753 HIGH POC
8.8 Oct 25

Potential buffer overflows in the Bluetooth subsystem due to asserts being disabled in /subsys/bluetooth/host/hci_core.c

Share

CVE-2026-10774 vulnerability details – vuln.today

This site uses cookies essential for authentication and security. No tracking or analytics cookies are used. Privacy Policy