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CVE-2026-82390VulnerabilityPublished Updated

Zephyr: The Espressif AES driver drivers/crypto/crypto_esp32_aes.c advertises a multi-session cipher API — it hands

Affects zephyrSource GCVE Database

0
Authoritative record:CVE-2026-82390· Low 3.7

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.7 Low.

Data as of 28 Oct 2026, 22:28 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
3.7Low
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 26 Oct 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq 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 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Ubuntu 26.10zephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=stonkingOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-4
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 26.04 LTSzephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=resoluteOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-1.1build1
  • =3.1.2-4
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSzephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=nobleOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-1.1
  • =3.1.2-1.1build1
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 22.04 LTSzephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=jammyOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-1build3
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 20.04 LTSzephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=focalOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-1build3
Fixed in–
Ubuntu 18.04 LTSzephyrpkg:deb/ubuntu/zephyr?arch=source&distro=bionicOther threatsAffected
  • =3.1.2-1build1
  • =3.1.2-1build2
Fixed in–

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Description

The Espressif AES driver drivers/crypto/crypto_esp32_aes.c advertises a multi-session cipher API — it hands out up to CONFIG_ESP32_CRYPTO_AES_SESSIONS_MAX (default 4) independent sessions, each carrying its own key and direction. The AES peripheral, however, has a single chip-global set of key and mode registers, and aes_begin_session() programmed them exactly once, at session start, outside the aes_lock mutex that serialises the transforms. The per-operation handlers aes_ecb_op(), aes_cbc_op() and aes_ctr_op() then ran aes_hal_transform_block() against whatever key and direction the registers happened to hold. As a result, once a second session is opened with a different key, every subsequent operation on the first session silently uses the second session's key and direction, and no error is reported. Because the key programming happened outside the lock, the correct usage pattern of "each thread does begin, then op, then free on its own session" also races: a second thread's cipher_begin_session() landing between the first thread's begin and its operation makes that operation run under the second thread's key. An attacker who can induce session creation on the device — for example a protocol peer whose connection causes a session key to be installed — can influence which key is resident when a victim operation runs. The impact is a cryptographic failure rather than memory corruption: data the application believed it was protecting under one key is encrypted or decrypted under another. Where the resident key is one the attacker knows or supplied, the affected plaintext becomes recoverable by that attacker, and the operation's direction (encrypt versus decrypt) can likewise be inverted. Exposure requires an application that holds two or more concurrent sessions with different keys against this driver; no in-tree Zephyr subsystem does so today (the 802.15.4 security layer, which does open two sessions, uses CCM mode, which this driver rejects), so the risk falls on application code that uses the documented multi-session API. The fix removes all hardware access from aes_begin_session() and reprograms the key and direction at the top of every operation, inside aes_lock, so the chip-global registers can no longer be observed stale by another session.

References

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