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Fencer Intel
medium 4.6

CVE-2026-90587 json

NULL pointer dereference in the Zephyr USB host stack when a device reports zero configurations

published 3d ago modified 2d ago also EUVD-2026-120488 , GHSA-9pxv-6992-2g24

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
4.6
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 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

usbh_device_init() in subsys/usb/host/usbh_device.c rejects a device whose device descriptor advertises bNumConfigurations == 0, but it only logs the error and jumps to the cleanup label without setting the return code. At that point the local err is still 0 from the preceding successful descriptor read, so the function returns success while having skipped usbh_device_set_configuration() — the only place udev->cfg_desc is allocated. The device structure is zero-initialised by usbh_device_alloc(), so udev->cfg_desc remains NULL.

usbh_device_connect() treats the zero return as a successful enumeration and calls usbh_class_probe_device(), which starts its descriptor walk from udev->cfg_desc. usbh_desc_get_next_function() passes that NULL pointer to usbh_desc_is_valid(), whose only guard compares the caller-supplied size, so head->bLength is read through a NULL pointer.

The condition is triggered entirely by the attached peripheral: attaching a USB device (or any USB gadget emulating one) that reports bNumConfigurations = 0 reaches the defect directly from the UHC_EVT_DEV_CONNECTED_FS/_HS event handler in subsys/usb/host/usbh_core.c, with no authentication and no user interaction beyond the physical attachment.

On targets where page zero is unmapped or CONFIG_NULL_POINTER_EXCEPTION_DETECTION is enabled this raises a fatal exception in the USB host thread, denying service to the host. Where address zero is readable, the descriptor walker instead parses low memory as a descriptor chain and can dispatch a class probe() with attacker-influenced values, causing further out-of-bounds reads through the still-NULL udev->cfg_desc in usbh_desc_get_iface(). No attacker-controlled write was identified, so the impact is availability plus a bounded out-of-bounds read. Note that CONFIG_USB_HOST_STACK is marked experimental.

Patch / fix

  • zephyrproject zephyr 4.5.0

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Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 4.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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.

The maintainers of zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.