VulnerabilityPublished 4 Aug 2026Updated 31 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-11368: zephyrproject zephyr · Use After Free

Affects zephyrproject zephyrSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.1 High : upgrade to 4.4.2 soon.

Data as of 3 Nov 2026, 10:57 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.1High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 22% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 4.4.2

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

Attack Vector: Adjacent
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Adjacent: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack, but the attack is limited at the protocol level to a logically adjacent topology. This can mean an attack must be launched from the same shared physical (e.g., Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11) or logical (e.g., local IP subnet) network, or from within a secure or otherwise limited administrative domain (e.g., MPLS, secure VPN to an administrative network zone).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 4 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 3 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade zephyrproject zephyr to 4.4.2.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
zephyrprojectzephyr	Affected >=4.4.0 <4.4.2	Fixed in 4.4.2
GitHubzephyr`pkg:github/zephyr`Other threats	Affected >=4.4.0 <4.4.2	Fixed in 4.4.2

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

The described fix involves nullifying the channel pointer in the metadata before freeing the channel to prevent use-after-free callbacks. If you cannot patch yet, consider limiting exposure to untrusted Bluetooth peers or disabling ATT traffic if feasible.

Description

The Bluetooth host ATT layer (subsys/bluetooth/host/att.c) associates each in-flight ATT TX buffer with its owning channel via the static tx_meta_data_storage[] array (data->att_chan = chan). When a buffer's last reference is dropped, its net-buf destroy callback defers the completion handling to the system workqueue (att_tx_destroy -> att_tx_destroy_work_handler -> att_on_sent_cb -> bt_att_sent), where bt_att_sent dereferences the channel and its ATT context (sys_slist_get(&att->reqs)). When a peer disconnects while an ATT PDU (a server notification/indication or any response) is still in flight in the controller TX path, L2CAP tears the channel down in l2cap_chan_del(): it runs the disconnected callback and then the released callback (bt_att_released), which frees the channel slab slot. Because the in-flight buffer is held by the connection TX path rather than the channel's own queue, its deferred destroy work can run after the channel has been freed. The att_on_sent_cb guard intended to drop the stale callback itself dereferences meta->att_chan, which is now a dangling pointer into a freed (and possibly reused) slab slot. A remote peer with an ATT connection can drive this by disconnecting during routine ATT traffic; no pairing or user interaction is required to reach the ATT bearer. The result is a use-after-free read/write of freed channel memory, reliably crashing the Bluetooth host (denial of service) and, because the channel slab slot may be reused, potentially corrupting live memory. The fix makes bt_att_released() NULL the att_chan field of every tx_meta_data_storage[] entry still referencing the channel before freeing it, so the deferred guard observes a NULL pointer and drops the callback. Teardown and the destroy work both run on the cooperative system workqueue, so the array update is serialized and needs no lock.

Impact

A remote attacker with an ATT connection can cause a use-after-free condition leading to denial of service by crashing the Bluetooth host. Additionally, there is potential for memory corruption if the freed channel memory is reused, which could impact system stability or security. No confidentiality impact is indicated. The vulnerability requires network access via Bluetooth ATT and no privileges or user interaction.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 11 Aug 2026, 18:10 UTC

Technical details

References

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