High severity · published Aug 24, 2026
CVE-2026-13212
Zephyr virtio driver calls an arbitrary function pointer from an out-of-range used-ring descriptor id
8.8
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The Zephyr virtio driver does not validate the descriptor-chain head id that the virtio device writes into the used ring. In virtio_isr() (drivers/virtio/virtio_common.c), the device-written vq->used->ring[idx].id is used directly as an index into vq->recv_cbs[] and vq->desc[], which are both allocated with exactly vq->num entries. recv_cbs[] holds {cb, opaque} callback entries, and the indexed callback pointer is then invoked as cbe.cb(cbe.opaque, used_len).
Because the id is consumed as a 16-bit value with no bound check, a malicious or compromised virtio backend (an untrusted hypervisor, or an untrusted hardware/peer-processor virtio device on a PCI or MMIO transport) can supply an id far beyond vq->num. This causes an out-of-bounds read of a {function pointer, argument} pair from heap memory beyond recv_cbs[], after which the driver calls that attacker-shaped pointer in the guest's interrupt context. No guest privileges or user interaction are required; the backend triggers it by writing the shared used ring and raising the queue interrupt.
The result is an arbitrary / attacker-influenced function-pointer call in the Zephyr guest, i.e. a control-flow-hijack primitive that can lead to code execution or, at minimum, a reliable crash. The fix rejects any used-ring id >= vq->num before indexing recv_cbs[]/desc[] or invoking the callback. This affects builds using CONFIG_VIRTIO with the PCI or MMIO transport.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Adjacent
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 30% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ZE
zephyr · zephyrproject
4.2.0 before 4.4.2 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-13212
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-13212
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/fe47dbca080957c425383cc1d5bdc7d48a41d4a5
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-7884-373w-qqhx
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