{"id":"CVE-2026-18417","aliases":["EUVD-2026-88573","GHSA-p8r8-8mw8-3wf9"],"status":"published","title":"Wild pointer dereference in Zephyr BSD sockets when a TCP listening socket reports an asynchronous error","description":"The native BSD-socket layer recorded a pending asynchronous socket error by type-punning it into struct net_context's void user_data field (ctx-\u003euser_data = INT_TO_POINTER(-status) in zsock_accepted_cb(), zsock_received_cb(), zsock_connected_cb() and zsock_close_ctx() in subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c), reading it back with POINTER_TO_INT(). That same field is owned by the network stack for listening TCP contexts: net_tcp_accept() stores the parent context pointer there and the TCP core passes it back to the registered accept callback. A failed accept therefore left a small integer (an errno value) where the stack expected a struct net_context .\n\nWhen the network interface carrying a listening TCP socket goes down, close_tcp_conn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c invokes the accept callback with -ENETDOWN and the context's user_data. In v4.3.0 the callback was not disarmed afterwards, so a second interface-down event forwarded the previously stored errno to zsock_accepted_cb(), which dereferenced it as the parent context and performed several stores through it (sock_set_error()'s read-modify-write of socket_data, k_fifo_cancel_wait(\u0026parent-\u003erecv_q)) — the crash described in the fix's commit message. v4.3.1 and v4.4.x carry a later change clearing conn-\u003eaccept_cb after the error callback (269cb8823d3 on the v4.3 branch, 913fae5169425550f2364655298fceb79b320066 on main), which closes that repeat path; on those releases the poisoned cookie remains reachable only by a narrower race, a handshake completing alongside the interface-down still passing the stale cookie to k_fifo_put(\u0026parent-\u003eaccept_q, ...), and by getsockopt(SO_ERROR), which reads the field back unconditionally.\n\nOn v4.3.0 an application that keeps a listening TCP socket open across repeated link-down events is sufficient to reach the defect; the triggering condition is a network-interface state change, not attacker-supplied packet data, so the practical attacker is one able to force the link down repeatedly (for example an adjacent attacker disrupting a wireless link) or one with local/physical access. Because both the faulting address and the stored data are fixed small constants derived from the errno value, the outcome is a wild-pointer access leading to a kernel fatal error — a denial of service (device crash or reset) rather than an attacker-directed memory corruption.\n\nThe fix stores the pending error in a dedicated net_context.sock_error field and converts every producer and consumer to sock_set_error()/sock_get_error(), leaving user_data untouched. As a side effect it also stops getsockopt(SO_ERROR) — which is evaluated unconditionally — from returning the kernel address held in user_data to a userspace application.","severity":{"version":"3.1","score":6.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna","from":"cve"},"epss":{"day":"2026-11-11","score":0.00175,"percentile":0.07024,"model":"v2026.06.15"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":false},"cwes":["CWE-843"],"published":"2026-09-28T23:25:23Z","modified":"2026-11-06T17:52:07Z","products":[{"vendor":"zephyrproject","product":"zephyr"},{"vendor":"zephyrproject-rtos","product":"zephyr"}],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/ef370a57d07637aaee8cec7b0bcebf4002ac8f54","tags":["patch","Patch","fix"]},{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-p8r8-8mw8-3wf9","tags":["Patch","Vendor Advisory","advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/18xxx/CVE-2026-18417.json","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18417","tags":["advisory"]},{"url":"https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr","tags":["package"]}],"sources":{"cve":[{"id":"CVE-2026-18417","title":"Wild pointer dereference in Zephyr BSD sockets when a TCP listening socket reports an asynchronous error","description":"The native BSD-socket layer recorded a pending asynchronous socket error by type-punning it into struct net_context's void user_data field (ctx-\u003euser_data = INT_TO_POINTER(-status) in zsock_accepted_cb(), zsock_received_cb(), zsock_connected_cb() and zsock_close_ctx() in subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c), reading it back with POINTER_TO_INT(). That same field is owned by the network stack for listening TCP contexts: net_tcp_accept() stores the parent context pointer there and the TCP core passes it back to the registered accept callback. A failed accept therefore left a small integer (an errno value) where the stack expected a struct net_context .\n\nWhen the network interface carrying a listening TCP socket goes down, close_tcp_conn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c invokes the accept callback with -ENETDOWN and the context's user_data. In v4.3.0 the callback was not disarmed afterwards, so a second interface-down event forwarded the previously stored errno to zsock_accepted_cb(), which dereferenced it as the parent context and performed several stores through it (sock_set_error()'s read-modify-write of socket_data, k_fifo_cancel_wait(\u0026parent-\u003erecv_q)) — the crash described in the fix's commit message. v4.3.1 and v4.4.x carry a later change clearing conn-\u003eaccept_cb after the error callback (269cb8823d3 on the v4.3 branch, 913fae5169425550f2364655298fceb79b320066 on main), which closes that repeat path; on those releases the poisoned cookie remains reachable only by a narrower race, a handshake completing alongside the interface-down still passing the stale cookie to k_fifo_put(\u0026parent-\u003eaccept_q, ...), and by getsockopt(SO_ERROR), which reads the field back unconditionally.\n\nOn v4.3.0 an application that keeps a listening TCP socket open across repeated link-down events is sufficient to reach the defect; the triggering condition is a network-interface state change, not attacker-supplied packet data, so the practical attacker is one able to force the link down repeatedly (for example an adjacent attacker disrupting a wireless link) or one with local/physical access. Because both the faulting address and the stored data are fixed small constants derived from the errno value, the outcome is a wild-pointer access leading to a kernel fatal error — a denial of service (device crash or reset) rather than an attacker-directed memory corruption.\n\nThe fix stores the pending error in a dedicated net_context.sock_error field and converts every producer and consumer to sock_set_error()/sock_get_error(), leaving user_data untouched. As a side effect it also stops getsockopt(SO_ERROR) — which is evaluated unconditionally — from returning the kernel address held in user_data to a userspace application.","status":"published","published":"2026-09-28T23:25:23.903Z","modified":"2026-09-30T13:43:48.703Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":6.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"cna"}],"cwes":["CWE-843"],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:20:12.60856Z"}],"euvd":[{"id":"EUVD-2026-88573","description":"The native BSD-socket layer recorded a pending asynchronous socket error by type-punning it into struct net_context's void user_data field (ctx-\u003euser_data = INT_TO_POINTER(-status) in zsock_accepted_cb(), zsock_received_cb(), zsock_connected_cb() and zsock_close_ctx() in subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c), reading it back with POINTER_TO_INT(). That same field is owned by the network stack for listening TCP contexts: net_tcp_accept() stores the parent context pointer there and the TCP core passes it back to the registered accept callback. A failed accept therefore left a small integer (an errno value) where the stack expected a struct net_context .\n\nWhen the network interface carrying a listening TCP socket goes down, close_tcp_conn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c invokes the accept callback with -ENETDOWN and the context's user_data. In v4.3.0 the callback was not disarmed afterwards, so a second interface-down event forwarded the previously stored errno to zsock_accepted_cb(), which dereferenced it as the parent context and performed several stores through it (sock_set_error()'s read-modify-write of socket_data, k_fifo_cancel_wait(\u0026parent-\u003erecv_q)) — the crash described in the fix's commit message. v4.3.1 and v4.4.x carry a later change clearing conn-\u003eaccept_cb after the error callback (269cb8823d3 on the v4.3 branch, 913fae5169425550f2364655298fceb79b320066 on main), which closes that repeat path; on those releases the poisoned cookie remains reachable only by a narrower race, a handshake completing alongside the interface-down still passing the stale cookie to k_fifo_put(\u0026parent-\u003eaccept_q, ...), and by getsockopt(SO_ERROR), which reads the field back unconditionally.\n\nOn v4.3.0 an application that keeps a listening TCP socket open across repeated link-down events is sufficient to reach the defect; the triggering condition is a network-interface state change, not attacker-supplied packet data, so the practical attacker is one able to force the link down repeatedly (for example an adjacent attacker disrupting a wireless link) or one with local/physical access. Because both the faulting address and the stored data are fixed small constants derived from the errno value, the outcome is a wild-pointer access leading to a kernel fatal error — a denial of service (device crash or reset) rather than an attacker-directed memory corruption.\n\nThe fix stores the pending error in a dedicated net_context.sock_error field and converts every producer and consumer to sock_set_error()/sock_get_error(), leaving user_data untouched. As a side effect it also stops getsockopt(SO_ERROR) — which is evaluated unconditionally — from returning the kernel address held in user_data to a userspace application.","status":"published","published":"2026-09-28T23:25:23Z","modified":"2026-09-30T13:43:48Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":6.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T17:27:49.499669Z"}],"nvd":[{"id":"CVE-2026-18417","description":"The native BSD-socket layer recorded a pending asynchronous socket error by type-punning it into struct net_context's void user_data field (ctx-\u003euser_data = INT_TO_POINTER(-status) in zsock_accepted_cb(), zsock_received_cb(), zsock_connected_cb() and zsock_close_ctx() in subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c), reading it back with POINTER_TO_INT(). That same field is owned by the network stack for listening TCP contexts: net_tcp_accept() stores the parent context pointer there and the TCP core passes it back to the registered accept callback. A failed accept therefore left a small integer (an errno value) where the stack expected a struct net_context .\n\nWhen the network interface carrying a listening TCP socket goes down, close_tcp_conn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c invokes the accept callback with -ENETDOWN and the context's user_data. In v4.3.0 the callback was not disarmed afterwards, so a second interface-down event forwarded the previously stored errno to zsock_accepted_cb(), which dereferenced it as the parent context and performed several stores through it (sock_set_error()'s read-modify-write of socket_data, k_fifo_cancel_wait(\u0026parent-\u003erecv_q)) — the crash described in the fix's commit message. v4.3.1 and v4.4.x carry a later change clearing conn-\u003eaccept_cb after the error callback (269cb8823d3 on the v4.3 branch, 913fae5169425550f2364655298fceb79b320066 on main), which closes that repeat path; on those releases the poisoned cookie remains reachable only by a narrower race, a handshake completing alongside the interface-down still passing the stale cookie to k_fifo_put(\u0026parent-\u003eaccept_q, ...), and by getsockopt(SO_ERROR), which reads the field back unconditionally.\n\nOn v4.3.0 an application that keeps a listening TCP socket open across repeated link-down events is sufficient to reach the defect; the triggering condition is a network-interface state change, not attacker-supplied packet data, so the practical attacker is one able to force the link down repeatedly (for example an adjacent attacker disrupting a wireless link) or one with local/physical access. Because both the faulting address and the stored data are fixed small constants derived from the errno value, the outcome is a wild-pointer access leading to a kernel fatal error — a denial of service (device crash or reset) rather than an attacker-directed memory corruption.\n\nThe fix stores the pending error in a dedicated net_context.sock_error field and converts every producer and consumer to sock_set_error()/sock_get_error(), leaving user_data untouched. As a side effect it also stops getsockopt(SO_ERROR) — which is evaluated unconditionally — from returning the kernel address held in user_data to a userspace application.","status":"published","published":"2026-09-29T00:17:04.207Z","modified":"2026-11-06T17:52:07.567Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":6.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium","assessor":"secondary"}],"cwes":["CWE-843"],"updated_at":"2026-11-06T20:01:13.883836Z"}],"osv":[{"id":"CVE-2026-18417","title":"Wild pointer dereference in Zephyr BSD sockets when a TCP listening socket reports an asynchronous error","description":"The native BSD-socket layer recorded a pending asynchronous socket error by type-punning it into struct net_context's void user_data field (ctx-\u003euser_data = INT_TO_POINTER(-status) in zsock_accepted_cb(), zsock_received_cb(), zsock_connected_cb() and zsock_close_ctx() in subsys/net/lib/sockets/sockets_inet.c), reading it back with POINTER_TO_INT(). That same field is owned by the network stack for listening TCP contexts: net_tcp_accept() stores the parent context pointer there and the TCP core passes it back to the registered accept callback. A failed accept therefore left a small integer (an errno value) where the stack expected a struct net_context .\n\nWhen the network interface carrying a listening TCP socket goes down, close_tcp_conn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c invokes the accept callback with -ENETDOWN and the context's user_data. In v4.3.0 the callback was not disarmed afterwards, so a second interface-down event forwarded the previously stored errno to zsock_accepted_cb(), which dereferenced it as the parent context and performed several stores through it (sock_set_error()'s read-modify-write of socket_data, k_fifo_cancel_wait(\u0026parent-\u003erecv_q)) — the crash described in the fix's commit message. v4.3.1 and v4.4.x carry a later change clearing conn-\u003eaccept_cb after the error callback (269cb8823d3 on the v4.3 branch, 913fae5169425550f2364655298fceb79b320066 on main), which closes that repeat path; on those releases the poisoned cookie remains reachable only by a narrower race, a handshake completing alongside the interface-down still passing the stale cookie to k_fifo_put(\u0026parent-\u003eaccept_q, ...), and by getsockopt(SO_ERROR), which reads the field back unconditionally.\n\nOn v4.3.0 an application that keeps a listening TCP socket open across repeated link-down events is sufficient to reach the defect; the triggering condition is a network-interface state change, not attacker-supplied packet data, so the practical attacker is one able to force the link down repeatedly (for example an adjacent attacker disrupting a wireless link) or one with local/physical access. Because both the faulting address and the stored data are fixed small constants derived from the errno value, the outcome is a wild-pointer access leading to a kernel fatal error — a denial of service (device crash or reset) rather than an attacker-directed memory corruption.\n\nThe fix stores the pending error in a dedicated net_context.sock_error field and converts every producer and consumer to sock_set_error()/sock_get_error(), leaving user_data untouched. As a side effect it also stops getsockopt(SO_ERROR) — which is evaluated unconditionally — from returning the kernel address held in user_data to a userspace application.","status":"published","published":"2026-09-28T23:25:23.903Z","modified":"2026-11-11T13:30:28.232498806Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":6.5,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","level":"medium"}],"cwes":["CWE-843"],"updated_at":"2026-11-08T02:57:30.447698Z"}]}}