VulnerabilityPublished 9 Nov 2026

CVE-2026-90590: zephyrproject zephyr · Dos

Affects zephyrproject zephyrSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium : upgrade to 4.5.0 or 4.3.2 when convenient.

Data as of 9 Nov 2026, 22:18 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

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

Thin evidence

One scorer or none

CVSS scores by source
CNA (zephyr)	CVSS 3.1	6.5

Patch: Available – fixed in 4.5.0, 4.3.2

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

Attack Vector: Adjacent
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
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: None: There is no loss of integrity within 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 9 Nov 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 9 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 4.5.0 or 4.3.2.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
zephyrprojectzephyr	Affected >=4.4.0 <4.5.0	Fixed in 4.5.0
zephyrprojectzephyr	Affected >=3.7.0 <4.3.2	Fixed in 4.3.2
GitHubzephyr`pkg:github/zephyr`Other threats	Affected >=3.7.0 <4.3.2 >=4.4.0 <4.5.0	Fixed in 4.3.2 4.5.0

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

Description

The NXP ENET QoS Ethernet driver in drivers/ethernet/eth_nxp_enet_qos serialises transmission with a binary semaphore, data->tx.tx_sem, taken in eth_nxp_enet_qos_tx() and returned only by the transmit-completion interrupt handler tx_dma_done(). A frame that has been handed to the transmit DMA when the Ethernet link goes down is never written back, so that completion interrupt never arrives. The PHY callback eth_nxp_enet_qos_phy_cb() reacts to carrier loss only by calling net_eth_carrier_set(); it does not stop the DMA, take the descriptors back or release the outstanding frame, and no timeout exists to do so. The trigger is a link-down/link-up transition that lands while a frame is under the transmit DMA. It can be produced by anyone who controls the link partner or the cable — for example by administratively downing and restoring the attached switch port, or by restarting auto-negotiation from a peer device — and can be made reliable by generating traffic that keeps the device transmitting and repeating the transition. No credentials or user interaction are required, and the trigger is at the link layer rather than over IP. Because the semaphore is never given back, every subsequent call to eth_nxp_enet_qos_tx() fails with -EBUSY for the remaining life of the boot; restoring the link does not recover the interface, since the link-up path only rewrites MAC_CONFIGURATION. The affected interface continues to receive but can no longer transmit anything — no ARP replies, no TCP acknowledgements, no DHCP renewals — until the device is reset. The net_pkt and the net_buf fragments of the abandoned frame are likewise never unreferenced and never return to their pools. The security-relevant property is persistence: a momentary link flap leaves the interface permanently unable to send, so the denial of service outlasts the attacker's access to the link. There is no confidentiality or integrity impact. The fix adds a claim/release pair around the outstanding packet so that completion and abandonment are mutually exclusive, aborts an outstanding frame from the PHY callback on carrier loss (stopping the DMA, flushing the MTL transmit queue and reinitialising the descriptor ring), and arms a transmit watchdog, CONFIG_ETH_NXP_ENET_QOS_TX_TIMEOUT_MS, so that any non-completing DMA — not only a carrier loss — reclaims the transmit slot and the packet.

References

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