Medium severity · published Aug 17, 2026
CVE-2026-12629
PL011 UART error interrupts never cleared, enabling an external-peer interrupt-storm denial of service
4.6
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The ARM PL011 UART driver in drivers/serial/uart_pl011.c fails to acknowledge receive error interrupts. On the PL011, the framing, parity, break, and overrun error interrupts (PL011_IMSC_ERROR_MASK) are cleared only by writing the interrupt-clear register UARTICR; reading the data register clears the RX interrupt and the per-byte RSR status but not the error interrupt status in MIS. The interrupt service routine pl011_isr() acknowledged only the CTS modem-status interrupt and never wrote icr for the error bits, so an asserted error interrupt remains pending after the ISR returns.
When an application enables error-interrupt reporting via the public uart_irq_err_enable() API, an attacker who controls the serial peer can deterministically assert these error bits by injecting line errors on the RX line — a baud/stop-bit mismatch or mid-character break (framing/break error), a flipped parity bit (parity error), or FIFO flooding (overrun error). Because the error interrupt is never cleared, the interrupt line stays asserted and the CPU re-enters pl011_isr() immediately and indefinitely, producing an interrupt-storm livelock from which the core makes no forward progress.
The impact is an availability-only denial of service (permanent hang), reachable from an external or removable UART peer. Exploitation is gated by configuration: the error interrupt is off by default and no in-tree subsystem enables it, so only applications that explicitly call uart_irq_err_enable() on a PL011-based, interrupt-driven port are affected. The fix makes pl011_isr() acknowledge the pending error bits via uart->icr, breaking the loop, and additionally clears the latched RSR status in pl011_err_check().
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Physical
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 14% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ZE
zephyr · zephyrproject
1.14.0 before 4.4.2 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-12629
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-12629
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/1069b6822ac90da2b9e6dc8a5bbe3873e9f92818
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-36rp-2hcp-f5hv
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