All vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-19947GHSA-8m8g-f5jf-x28x

zephyr: Missing kernel object permission check in devmux syscalls allows unprivileged user threads to retarget a device multiplexer

zephyrproject zephyr
CVSS
5.3Medium
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.10%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 0% of CVEs. Scored 23 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in4.5.0Fixed versionCVE List
Published21 Oct 2026Updated 23 Oct 2026CVE List

What fixes it

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Description

The device multiplexer pseudo-driver in drivers/misc/devmux/devmux.c exposes two system calls, devmux_select_get() and devmux_select_set(). When CONFIG_USERSPACE is enabled, their user-mode verifiers z_vrfy_devmux_select_get() and z_vrfy_devmux_select_set() forwarded directly to the kernel implementations without performing any kernel-object validation โ€” no k_object_access_check() and no driver object check. Compounding this, DEVICE_DT_INST_DEFINE() registered devmux instances with a NULL driver API pointer, which causes scripts/build/gen_kobject_list.py to skip them entirely, so a devmux device had no struct k_object and no permission on it could be granted or withheld in the first place.

Any thread running in user mode can reach the defect: device pointers such as DEVICE_DT_GET(DT_NODELABEL(devmux0)) are compile-time constants available to application code, and the syscall accepted them from a thread that had never been granted access to the device. The kernel implementations do validate the pointer against the static devmux instance table and bounds-check the selection index, so this is not a memory-safety issue; the failure is purely one of authorization. Exposure requires CONFIG_USERSPACE=y together with the experimental CONFIG_DEVMUX=y (which depends on CONFIG_DEVICE_MUTABLE) and a zephyr,devmux devicetree node.

An unprivileged user-mode thread can read and change which downstream device a multiplexer forwards to, bypassing the userspace object-permission model. Because a devmux forwards the data, configuration and API of the selected device โ€” its documented use being zephyr,console and zephyr,shell-uart switching โ€” an attacker can suppress console, log and shell output, redirect that output to a downstream device it is able to observe, or flip the selection underneath another thread that is legitimately using the multiplexer. The impact is bounded to the devicetree-fixed set of downstream devices; no out-of-bounds access or arbitrary pointer dereference is reachable.

The fix declares __subsystem struct devmux_driver_api and attaches a DEVICE_API(devmux, devmux_api) instance to each devmux device so that it becomes a tracked K_OBJ_DRIVER_DEVMUX kernel object, and adds K_OOPS(devmux_inst_get(dev) == SIZE_MAX) plus K_OOPS(k_object_access_check(dev) != 0) to both verifiers.

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 1

  • zephyraffected: 3.6.0 before 4.5.0CVE List

References 2