CVE-2026-12366

CVE-2026-12366CVE-2026-12366

Description

Zephyr's dynamic kernel-object disposal path unref_check() in kernel/userspace/userspace.c frees an object's storage (k_free(dyn->data)) once its reference count reaches zero, after running a per-object-type cleanup. The cleanup switch handled only K_OBJ_MSGQ and K_OBJ_STACK; there was no K_OBJ_TIMER case. A dynamically-allocated, initialized, and armed k_timer keeps its embedded struct _timeout dnode linked in the global timeout queue (_timeout_q), so freeing the timer storage without cancelling the timeout leaves a dangling node in that queue. When the timer next expires, the timeout machinery walks _timeout_q and invokes z_timer_expiration_handler() on the freed node, dereferencing and writing freed (and reusable) kernel heap in kernel/ISR context. This is a deterministic use-after-free that does not depend on SMP: the queued node is simply never unlinked at free time. The disposal is reachable from an unprivileged user thread under CONFIG_USERSPACE + CONFIG_DYNAMIC_OBJECTS: a thr

Scoring

CVSS 8.8 ()
VectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Last modified2026-08-14
Sourced from NVD. Curated for EU compliance use cases by Adam Lundqvist, Founder at SQUR.