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NULL pointer dereference in the MCTP I2C+GPIO target binding triggerable by a peer I2C controller

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

The MCTP-over-I2C+GPIO target binding in subsys/pmci/mctp/mctp_i2c_gpio_target.c emulates a small pseudo-register file, where the bus controller first writes a register number and then writes or reads payload bytes. The selected register (b->reg_addr) and the data-phase flag (b->rxtx) were never cleared when the controller issued an I2C STOP, so after a completed transfer the target still had a data register selected while the packet buffer that register refers to had already been consumed and set to NULL by mctp_i2c_gpio_target_stop(). A controller on the bus can re-enter the same branch of mctp_i2c_gpio_target_stop() with a NULL buffer using two ordinary transactions and no authentication: first a normal packet write to MCTP_I2C_GPIO_RX_MSG_ADDR followed by STOP (which delivers and frees b->rx_pkt), then a bare read transaction followed by STOP. The failing read_requested() call leaves the stale state untouched and the I2C driver still delivers the STOP callback, which then calls mctp_bus_rx() with a NULL packet. The symmetric case exists on the transmit side, where the stale MCTP_I2C_GPIO_TX_MSG_ADDR selection dereferences b->tx_pkt->end after b->tx_pkt has been cleared and additionally signals b->tx_complete a second time, causing the next outbound packet to be dropped. The dereference happens in the I2C target interrupt handler, so on any target that traps accesses to address 0 the result is a fatal exception and a device reset or halt — a denial of service inflicted by

Announced Group revision 1
Original source ↗

CVE-2026-79976

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-2026-79976

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": "4.3.0",
        "versionType": "semver",
        "lessThanOrEqual": "4.4.2"
      }
    ],
    "packageName": "zephyr",
    "programFiles": [
      "subsys/pmci/mctp/mctp_i2c_gpio_target.c"
    ],
    "collectionURL": "https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr",
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
    "programRoutines": [
      {
        "name": "mctp_i2c_gpio_target_read_processed"
      },
      {
        "name": "mctp_i2c_gpio_target_read_requested"
      },
      {
        "name": "mctp_i2c_gpio_target_stop"
      }
    ]
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-79976

Source reference: /cveMetadata/cveId

Publisher severity

high

Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics

Event
#53289 · Revision 1
Added to Heist Feed
Publisher date
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