Medium severity · published Aug 11, 2026
CVE-2026-11894
Double-free / use-after-free in Realtek BEE Bluetooth HCI driver `send()` error paths
5.9
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The Realtek BEE Bluetooth HCI driver's send callback, bt_hci_bee_send() in drivers/bluetooth/hci/hci_bee.c, violated the bt_hci_driver_api buffer-ownership contract. That contract requires the driver to consume (unref) the transmit net_buf only on success; on an error return the host caller retains ownership and unrefs the buffer itself. The pre-fix code routed all error paths through a shared cleanup label that unconditionally called net_buf_unref(buf) before returning the error code.
Because the host TX paths (in subsys/bluetooth/host/hci_core.c) unref the buffer again after send() returns an error, the buffer is freed twice: the driver returns it to its net_buf pool and the host then unrefs the already-freed buffer, corrupting the shared pool / underflowing the reference count (CWE-415). The same error branch additionally dereferenced buf->len inside a LOG_ERR call after the buffer had already been unref'd, a read of freed memory (CWE-416) that is compiled in at the default error log level.
The failing edges are reached when the controller's host-to-controller buffer allocation fails or the controller send fails (resource-exhaustion / IO conditions). A remote Bluetooth peer can push the device toward these conditions indirectly by driving heavy host transmit activity, at which point the double-free corrupts the host net_buf pool and most likely crashes the device, with residual potential for further memory corruption. The impact is confined to builds using this specific Realtek BEE HCI driver.
The fix returns early from each error path without unreffing and unrefs the buffer only on the success path, restoring the ownership contract and eliminating both the double-free and the use-after-free read.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
Attack vector
Adjacent
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 16% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ZE
zephyr · zephyrproject
4.4.0 before 4.4.2 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-11894
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-11894
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/9a684b5c314fb1d8670b01f7b6c4450a9353906c
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-v9mj-h2m6-v9c6
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