Zephyr's Precision Time Protocol receive handler ptp_msg_post_recv() in subsys/net/lib/ptp/msg.c takes the 4-bit message type straight off the wire via ptp_msg_type() (msg->header.type_major_sdo_id & 0xF, range 0-15) and uses it to index the msg_size[] table. That table only defines entries up to PTP_MSG_MANAGEMENT (0xD), giving it ARRAY_SIZE == 14. Before the fix there was no upper-bound check, so the undefined types 0xE and 0xF indexed one or two int slots past the end of the array — an out-of-bounds read of adjacent read-only data.
The out-of-bounds value is then reused as a length: it gates msg_size[type] > cnt, and when it is small or negative it makes cnt - msg_size[type] a large positive budget passed to msg_tlv_post_recv(), whose TLV loop then walks the message suffix past the received bytes, performing further out-of-bounds reads and in-place byte-swap writes on memory beyond the message slab.
The defect is reached directly from the network: ptp_port_event_gen() in subsys/net/lib/ptp/port.c reads a PTP frame with ptp_transport_recv() and calls ptp_msg_post_recv() with the attacker-chosen type. PTP uses UDP multicast or raw Ethernet (0x88F7) and is unauthenticated, so any host on the same link can trigger the indexing on a CONFIG_PTP-enabled node with no preconditions.
The reliably reproducible impact is a denial of service (fault/crash); a limited memory-corruption path exists but depends on the build-specific value adjacent to msg_size[], which the attacker cannot tune. The fix rejects type >= ARRAY_SIZE(msg_size) with -EBADMSG before any indexing.
The out-of-bounds value is then reused as a length: it gates msg_size[type] > cnt, and when it is small or negative it makes cnt - msg_size[type] a large positive budget passed to msg_tlv_post_recv(), whose TLV loop then walks the message suffix past the received bytes, performing further out-of-bounds reads and in-place byte-swap writes on memory beyond the message slab.
The defect is reached directly from the network: ptp_port_event_gen() in subsys/net/lib/ptp/port.c reads a PTP frame with ptp_transport_recv() and calls ptp_msg_post_recv() with the attacker-chosen type. PTP uses UDP multicast or raw Ethernet (0x88F7) and is unauthenticated, so any host on the same link can trigger the indexing on a CONFIG_PTP-enabled node with no preconditions.
The reliably reproducible impact is a denial of service (fault/crash); a limited memory-corruption path exists but depends on the build-specific value adjacent to msg_size[], which the attacker cannot tune. The fix rejects type >= ARRAY_SIZE(msg_size) with -EBADMSG before any indexing.
Default status is the baseline for the product, each version can override it (e.g. patched versions marked unaffected).
| Vendor | Product | Default status | Versions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| zephyrproject | zephyr | unaffected |
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References
History
Tue, 18 Aug 2026 21:15:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Zephyr's Precision Time Protocol receive handler ptp_msg_post_recv() in subsys/net/lib/ptp/msg.c takes the 4-bit message type straight off the wire via ptp_msg_type() (msg->header.type_major_sdo_id & 0xF, range 0-15) and uses it to index the msg_size[] table. That table only defines entries up to PTP_MSG_MANAGEMENT (0xD), giving it ARRAY_SIZE == 14. Before the fix there was no upper-bound check, so the undefined types 0xE and 0xF indexed one or two int slots past the end of the array — an out-of-bounds read of adjacent read-only data. The out-of-bounds value is then reused as a length: it gates msg_size[type] > cnt, and when it is small or negative it makes cnt - msg_size[type] a large positive budget passed to msg_tlv_post_recv(), whose TLV loop then walks the message suffix past the received bytes, performing further out-of-bounds reads and in-place byte-swap writes on memory beyond the message slab. The defect is reached directly from the network: ptp_port_event_gen() in subsys/net/lib/ptp/port.c reads a PTP frame with ptp_transport_recv() and calls ptp_msg_post_recv() with the attacker-chosen type. PTP uses UDP multicast or raw Ethernet (0x88F7) and is unauthenticated, so any host on the same link can trigger the indexing on a CONFIG_PTP-enabled node with no preconditions. The reliably reproducible impact is a denial of service (fault/crash); a limited memory-corruption path exists but depends on the build-specific value adjacent to msg_size[], which the attacker cannot tune. The fix rejects type >= ARRAY_SIZE(msg_size) with -EBADMSG before any indexing. | |
| Title | Out-of-bounds read in Zephyr PTP message parsing from unvalidated message type | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-125 | |
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| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
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MITRE
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: zephyr
Published:
Updated: 2026-08-18T20:55:43.955Z
Reserved: 2026-06-18T15:22:28.332Z
Link: CVE-2026-12632
Vulnrichment
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NVD
Status : Received
Published: 2026-08-18T21:16:33.783
Modified: 2026-08-18T21:16:33.783
Link: CVE-2026-12632
Redhat
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OpenCVE Enrichment
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Weaknesses