Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-9263

Memory Safety in Zephyrproject Zephyr 3.3.0 – 4.4.1

Public PoCMemory Safety
Published
30 June 2026
Modified
14 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0031 24th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-9263 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Zephyrproject Zephyr. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 24th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SC-7 (Boundary Protection) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The Zephyr Bluetooth controller ISO Adaptation Layer (subsys/bluetooth/controller/ll_sw/isoal.c) fails to validate the length field of a framed ISO PDU start segment. Per the Bluetooth specification a start segment (sc=0) always carries a 3-byte time_offset, so its segment-header len must be…

more

at least PDU_ISO_SEG_TIMEOFFSET_SIZE (3). isoal_check_seg_header() accepted start segments with len < 3 as valid, and isoal_rx_framed_consume() then computed length = seg_hdr->len - 3 in a uint8_t, underflowing to 253-255 when len is 0-2. That oversized length is passed to isoal_rx_append_to_sdu(), whose copy is clamped only against the destination SDU buffer size, not the source PDU length, so up to ~255 bytes of controller memory beyond the received PDU are copied (via sink_sdu_write_hci()/net_buf_add_mem) into an HCI ISO data packet and delivered to the host. The PDU and its segment headers are entirely attacker-controlled and arrive over the air, reachable through both the CIS and BIS-sync HCI data paths (hci_driver.c) and the vendor data path (ull_iso.c), so a remote CIS peer or a broadcaster the device is synced to can trigger an out-of-bounds read causing information disclosure to the host and potential denial of service (faults or malformed oversized HCI ISO packets). The flaw affects all Zephyr releases since framed ISO reception was introduced in v3.0.0. The fix rejects sc=0 segments with len < 3 in isoal_check_seg_header() and adds a guard before the subtraction in isoal_rx_framed_consume().

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
Why these techniques?

Remote over-the-air Bluetooth PDU exploitation leading to OOB read/info disclosure on a network-exposed wireless interface.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

Likely ATT&CK TechniquesAI

Techniques this vulnerability likely enables, inferred from its description, weakness type, and attributed-actor tradecraft. Confidence is per-technique.

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Accessconfidence: HIGH
Remote attacker-controlled ISO PDUs over Bluetooth (CIS/BIS) directly trigger the out-of-bounds read in the Zephyr controller.
T1005 Data from Local System Collectionconfidence: HIGH
The vulnerability enables reading up to ~255 bytes of adjacent controller memory and exfiltrating it to the host via oversized HCI ISO packets.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impactconfidence: MEDIUM
Malformed oversized HCI ISO packets delivered to the host can cause faults or denial of service.
inferred from description + CWE · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-1675Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2025-1674Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-10652Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-10638Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-10645Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-1678Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-10657Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-10665Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2026-5067Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr
CVE-2025-1673Same product: Zephyrproject Zephyr

Affected Assets

zephyrproject
zephyr
3.3.0 — 4.4.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • SC-7 Boundary Protection
  • SI-16 Memory Protection
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly requires validation of all input fields (here the segment-header len of sc=0 ISO PDUs) before any length arithmetic or data copying occurs.

prevent

Enforces boundary protection and filtering of untrusted wireless PDUs at the Bluetooth HCI/ISO ingress points (hci_driver.c, ull_iso.c) before they reach isoal_rx_framed_consume.

prevent

Provides memory-protection mechanisms that can contain or detect the out-of-bounds read performed by net_buf_add_mem when an underflowed length reaches sink_sdu_write_hci.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

detects

Security testing in development and acceptance includes fuzzing and static analysis that detect out-of-bounds read defects before release.

A.8.15 Logging partial match
detects

Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

prevents

Application security requirements include explicit bounds and memory-safety specifications that mitigate buffer over-reads.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles require memory-safe design patterns and runtime protections against out-of-bounds access.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and mandate bounds-checked reads, eliminating CWE-125.

References