Unbounded TX busy-loop DoS in Zephyr PL011 UART driver under CTS hardware flow control
The Zephyr PL011 UART driver (drivers/serial/uart_pl011.c) contains an unbounded software loop in pl011_irq_tx_enable() that repeatedly invokes the interrupt-driven application callback while the TX interrupt mask bit (PL011_IMSC_TXIM) is set, to work around the controller's level-transition TX-interrupt behavior. When CTS hardware flow control is enabled (devicetree hw-flow-control or runtime UART_CFG_FLOW_CTRL_RTS_CTS) and the wired serial peer de-asserts CTS, the controller stops draining the TX FIFO; pl011_fifo_fill() then returns 0 on every call while the application still has pending data and therefore never disables the TX interrupt. The loop condition never clears, so the thread that called uart_irq_tx_enable() (e.g. h4_send() in the Bluetooth HCI H4 driver) spins indefinitely, hanging the executing context and stalling the transport — a denial of service (CWE-835). An attacker controlling the device attached to the UART's CTS line can trigger the hang by withholding CTS during transmission. Because that peer is the device wired to the UART — which may be a removable or external module (e.g. an off-board Bluetooth controller on the HCI H4 link) rather than a permanently-bonded on-PCB part — the attack vector is scored Adjacent (AV:A) rather than Physical; the security subcommittee should confirm the vector against the specific deployment. Impact is availability only; there is no memory-safety, confidentiality, or integrity consequence. The vulnerable loop was introduc
CVE-2026-10642
Primary source · Revision 1
Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.
Security context
Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-10642
zephyr
Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product
- Affected versions
- Not stated in this record
- Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Structured affected-version data
Original package identities and version rules from this source.
[
{
"vendor": "zephyrproject",
"product": "zephyr",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "4.1.0",
"lessThan": "4.3.1",
"versionType": "semver"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "4.4.0",
"lessThan": "4.4.2",
"versionType": "semver"
}
],
"packageName": "zephyr",
"programFiles": [
"drivers/serial/uart_pl011.c"
],
"collectionURL": "https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr",
"defaultStatus": "unaffected"
}
]- Related CVEs
- CVE-2026-10642
Source reference:
/cveMetadata/cveId
Publisher severity
medium
Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics
- Event
- #30753 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date