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