CVE-2026-10639CVE-2026-10639

In Zephyr's native IPv4 stack, icmpv4_handle_echo_request() in subsys/net/ip/icmpv4.c builds an echo-reply packet (reply), hands it to net_try_send_data(), and then, on success, calls net_stats_update_icmp_sent(net_pkt_iface(reply)). net_try_send_data() transfers ownership of reply to the TX path (net_if_try_queue_tx - net_if_tx - L2/driver send, or the asynchronous net_if_tx_thread), which can unref it to refcount 0 and return the struct net_pkt to its slab (net_pkt_unref - k_mem_slab_free) before the stats line runs. net_core.c documents this exact contract ('the pkt might contain garbage already ... do not use pkt after that call'). The post-send net_pkt_iface(reply) therefore reads reply-iface out of a freed (and possibly already reallocated) net_pkt, a use-after-free read; with CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE the stats macro additionally increments a counter through that value, i.e. a dereference/write through a stale or recycled-slot pointer. The path is reached unauthentic