CVE-2026-13212

Zephyr virtio driver calls an arbitrary function pointer from an out-of-range used-ring descriptor id

State
Published
Severity
8.8 High
Published
Aug 24, 2026
Updated
Aug 24, 2026
Reserved
Jun 24, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

The Zephyr virtio driver does not validate the descriptor-chain head id that the virtio device writes into the used ring. In virtio_isr() (drivers/virtio/virtio_common.c), the device-written vq->used->ring[idx].id is used directly as an index into vq->recv_cbs[] and vq->desc[], which are both allocated with exactly vq->num entries. recv_cbs[] holds {cb, opaque} callback entries, and the indexed callback pointer is then invoked as cbe.cb(cbe.opaque, used_len).

Because the id is consumed as a 16-bit value with no bound check, a malicious or compromised virtio backend (an untrusted hypervisor, or an untrusted hardware/peer-processor virtio device on a PCI or MMIO transport) can supply an id far beyond vq->num. This causes an out-of-bounds read of a {function pointer, argument} pair from heap memory beyond recv_cbs[], after which the driver calls that attacker-shaped pointer in the guest's interrupt context. No guest privileges or user interaction are required; the backend triggers it by writing the shared used ring and raising the queue interrupt.

The result is an arbitrary / attacker-influenced function-pointer call in the Zephyr guest, i.e. a control-flow-hijack primitive that can lead to code execution or, at minimum, a reliable crash. The fix rejects any used-ring id >= vq->num before indexing recv_cbs[]/desc[] or invoking the callback. This affects builds using CONFIG_VIRTIO with the PCI or MMIO transport.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.18.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hzephyr

Weaknesses

Affected Products

ProductVersions
zephyrzephyrproject
  • 4.2.0 to before 4.4.2Affected

References

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