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Fencer Intel
medium 5.4

CVE-2026-13481 json

Out-of-bounds read in PTP management TLV TIME parsing in Zephyr net PTP

published 2mo ago modified 5d ago also EUVD-2026-66557

cvss
5.4
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The IEEE 1588 PTP management-message parser in subsys/net/lib/ptp/tlv.c mishandles the PTP_MGMT_TIME management id. In tlv_mgmt_post_recv(), the PTP_MGMT_TIME case casts mgmt_tlv->data to a 10-byte struct ptp_timestamp and reads it (then byte-swaps and writes it back) without first checking that the TLV data field is at least sizeof(struct ptp_timestamp). Every sibling management id in the same switch validates its length first; PTP_MGMT_TIME was the only case lacking that check.

The length passed in is the management data size (tlv->length - 2), and the upstream guard in ptp_tlv_post_recv() only requires tlv->length > 2, while msg_tlv_post_recv() validates only that the TLV fits within the received byte count, not a per-id minimum. A peer on the local PTP segment can therefore send a PTP_MSG_MANAGEMENT message carrying a short PTP_MGMT_TIME TLV (data as small as 2 bytes), causing the parser to read and write 8 bytes beyond the validated data. The message type and TLV contents are taken straight off the wire, so the path is reachable by any adjacent attacker when CONFIG_PTP is enabled.

The over-read and write-back stay within the struct ptp_msg allocation (mgmt_tlv->data lives in the leading mtu[NET_ETH_MTU] union member, so data + 10 lands at most a few bytes past mtu[], inside the same object), so this is an out-of-bounds read of adjacent in-object memory plus a bounded in-place corruption of the message's parsed timestamp, not past-allocation memory corruption. Impact is limited to minor information exposure of adjacent bytes and corruption of the device's parsed management TIME value; there is no crash on the access and no reachable reference-count corruption.

The fix adds if (length < sizeof(struct ptp_timestamp)) { return -EBADMSG; } before the cast, matching the other management-id cases and fully closing the receive-path defect.

Patch / fix

  • zephyrproject zephyr 4.3.2, 4.4.2

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-mh5r-jxh8-hxwx referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Affected products

  • zephyrproject zephyr

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.