CVE-2026-90834 json
UART wide-data syscall verifiers check the 8-bit driver op, allowing a user-mode thread to trigger a NULL function-pointer call in kernel mode
published yesterday modified yesterday also EUVD-2026-123039 , GHSA-xvwx-ww79-r346
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
- 5.5
- version 3.1, CNA
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.1%
- EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
The user-mode syscall verifiers for the 16-bit ("wide data") UART API in drivers/serial/uart_handlers.c validated the wrong driver operation. z_vrfy_uart_poll_out_u16(), z_vrfy_uart_tx_u16() and z_vrfy_uart_rx_enable_u16() each ran K_SYSCALL_DRIVER_UART() against the 8-bit op (poll_out, tx, rx_enable) rather than the 16-bit op that the corresponding implementation dereferences (poll_out_u16, tx_u16, rx_enable_u16). z_impl_uart_poll_out_u16(), z_impl_uart_tx_u16() and z_impl_uart_rx_enable_u16() in include/zephyr/drivers/uart/uart_internal.h call their op unconditionally, with no NULL guard of their own, because the verifier is supposed to have established that the op exists.
CONFIG_UART_WIDE_DATA is an application-selectable option that no driver selects, and only a handful of the serial drivers in the tree implement any _u16 operation; every other driver leaves those struct uart_driver_api members NULL while still providing the 8-bit ops the old check inspected. In a build with CONFIG_USERSPACE and CONFIG_UART_WIDE_DATA (plus CONFIG_UART_ASYNC_API for the uart_tx_u16() and uart_rx_enable_u16() variants), an unprivileged user-mode thread that legitimately holds access to such a UART device object can invoke the _u16 syscall: the object, permission and op checks all pass, and the kernel-side implementation then performs an indirect call through a NULL function pointer while running at supervisor privilege.
The result is a CPU exception taken in kernel context instead of the intended K_OOPS or -ENOSYS return. With the default k_sys_fatal_error_handler() this halts the system (or warm-reboots it under CONFIG_RESET_ON_FATAL_ERROR), so a thread confined by the userspace sandbox can deny service to the whole device — a capability the user-mode privilege boundary is specifically meant to withhold. The call target is a fixed NULL, so there is no attacker-controlled code execution and no memory disclosure; the separate K_SYSCALL_MEMORY_ARRAY_READ()/K_SYSCALL_MEMORY_ARRAY_WRITE() bounds checks on the caller's buffer were and remain correct. The fix points each verifier at the matching _u16 op, using a plain K_SYSCALL_OBJ() object check where the op does not exist or where the implementation already tests it for NULL.
Patch / fix
Is CVE-2026-90834 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerExploit prediction
0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 3.1 | 5.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
Affected products
- zephyrproject zephyr
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
References
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-90834
- NVD CVE-2026-90834
- Maintainer advisory GHSA-xvwx-ww79-r346
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.