CVE-2026-10640 PUBLISHED

Use-after-free reading `net_pkt` `iface` after send in IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (`ipv6_nbr.c`)

Assigner: zephyr
Reserved: 02.06.2026 Published: 16.06.2026 Updated: 16.06.2026

Zephyr's IPv6 Neighbor Discovery send paths (net_ipv6_send_na, net_ipv6_send_ns, net_ipv6_send_rs in subsys/net/ip/ipv6_nbr.c) updated the per-interface ICMP-sent statistics by calling net_pkt_iface(pkt) after net_send_data(pkt) had already returned successfully. On the success path the network stack owns and releases the packet's reference (the L2/driver send unrefs it, e.g. ethernet_send - net_pkt_unref), so for a freshly allocated packet with refcount 1 the net_pkt slab block can be freed before the statistics line runs (synchronously when no TX queue thread is configured, or via a concurrent TX thread otherwise).

The subsequent net_pkt_iface(pkt) reads pkt-iface from the freed slab block, and with CONFIG_NET_STATISTICS_PER_INTERFACE enabled that loaded pointer is dereferenced to increment iface-stats.icmp.sent, a use-after-free (CWE-416). If the slab block was reallocated in the meantime the read/increment targets unrelated or attacker-influenced memory, yielding corrupted statistics, a fault/crash (denial of service), or potential limited memory corruption.

The vulnerable Neighbor Advertisement path is reachable by any unauthenticated on-link node simply by sending ICMPv6 Neighbor Solicitations to a Zephyr node with native IPv6 enabled (handle_ns_input - net_ipv6_send_na).

Affected from v3.3.0 through v4.4.0; the fix uses the already-available iface argument instead of touching the sent packet. Configurations without per-interface statistics dereference only a global counter and are not affected by the memory-safety aspect.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
CVSS Score: 4.2

Product Status

Vendor zephyrproject
Product zephyr
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 3.3.0 to 4.5.0 (excl.)

References

Problem Types

  • use-after-free CWE