CVE-2026-90588 json
Out-of-bounds read in Zephyr HTTP client debug logging of response header fields
published 2d ago modified 2d ago also EUVD-2026-120489 , GHSA-pmg7-7q9m-mx35
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
- 3.7
- 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 12%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
The HTTP client's debug helper print_header_field() in subsys/net/lib/http/http_client.c formatted an http_parser data-callback slice with a %s conversion: snprintk(output, len + 1, "%s", str). The parser hands its callbacks a pointer and a length into the caller's receive buffer, and those bytes are not NUL terminated. The size argument of snprintk() bounds only the destination, while the %s conversion measures the source first — lib/os/cbprintf_complete.c uses strlen() when no precision is given, and lib/os/cbprintf_nano.c uses strlen() unconditionally — so the read walks past the end of the header field and past the end of the receive buffer until it finds a zero byte.
The slice reaches the helper from on_url(), on_header_field() and on_header_value(), which the parser invokes on bytes that http_wait_data() read straight off the socket into the application-supplied recv_buf. A malicious or compromised HTTP server, or an attacker able to answer a plaintext request, therefore controls both the header field and the bytes that follow it in the buffer, and can guarantee that no zero byte appears before the buffer ends, forcing the over-read. The in-tree tests/net/lib/http_client suite reproduces the over-read under CONFIG_ASAN=y on an ordinary GET.
The impact is bounded. The whole helper body is compiled only when the HTTP client log module is explicitly set to Debug (CONFIG_NET_HTTP_LOG_LEVEL_DBG=y, which the global CONFIG_LOG_DEFAULT_LEVEL does not set), so default builds are unaffected. No out-of-bounds write occurs and none of the over-read bytes are emitted into the log, so there is no information disclosure; the consequence is an out-of-bounds read that can fault and panic the device where the buffer abuts an unmapped or MPU/MMU-protected region.
The fix copies exactly the len bytes the parser offered with memcpy() and terminates them, instead of relying on a %s conversion (a %.*s precision would not have sufficed, since cbprintf_nano.c measures the source in full before applying it).
Patch / fix
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Check with FencerExploit prediction
0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 3.1 | 3.7 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
Affected products
- zephyrproject zephyr
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-125 Out-of-bounds Read
References
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-90588
- Maintainer advisory GHSA-pmg7-7q9m-mx35
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The maintainers of zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.