High severity · published Oct 5, 2026
CVE-2026-19184
Out-of-bounds write in the NXP GAU ADC driver due to byte-versus-sample buffer size validation mismatch
8.4
CVSS
0.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The NXP GAU ADC driver (drivers/adc/adc_mcux_gau_adc.c) validated the caller-supplied sequence->buffer_size, which is expressed in bytes, against the number of active channels, which is a sample count. It then stored that byte count directly in data->results_length and used it in mcux_gau_adc_read_samples() as the number of uint16_t slots available. Because each conversion result occupies sizeof(uint16_t) bytes, a buffer that was accepted as "large enough" could be written with up to twice its size in bytes, so every sample past the buffer's midpoint was written out of bounds.
adc_read() and adc_read_async() are Zephyr system calls. The syscall verifier in drivers/adc/adc_handlers.c only confirms that the caller owns buffer_size writable bytes (K_SYSCALL_MEMORY_WRITE); deciding whether that size is sufficient for the requested channels and extra_samplings is delegated entirely to the driver. On a build with CONFIG_USERSPACE=y, a user-mode thread that has been granted the ADC device object could therefore submit a deliberately half-sized buffer and cause the driver's work-queue handler — which runs in supervisor mode, outside the caller's MPU restrictions — to write ADC conversion results past the end of that buffer, at an address and for a length of the caller's choosing.
The overrun is bounded by the requested sequence: with sequence->options->extra_samplings set, the sampling loop walks the buffer pointer forward across every sampling, so the total overrun can reach the full size of the supplied buffer (kilobytes for a large extra_samplings). The written words are 16-bit ADC conversion results, so the content is only partially attacker-influenced (via the selected analog input, gain and resolution), but the destination and length are fully controlled — sufficient for kernel memory corruption, a crash, or a userspace-to-kernel privilege escalation. Builds without CONFIG_USERSPACE, or on SoCs other than NXP RW61x with the GAU ADC node enabled, are not exposed to the privilege boundary; there the same defect only causes a silent overflow when the application itself passes an undersized buffer.
The fix replaces the ad-hoc check with the shared adc_sequence_validate_buffer() helper (validating against num_channels * sizeof(uint16_t)), stores buffer_size / sizeof(uint16_t) in results_length, and corrects the loop bound to a post-decrement so exactly the available number of slots may be written.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.1% · higher than 1% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ZE
zephyr · zephyrproject
3.7.0 before 4.5.0 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-19184
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-19184
patch
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/82b11958065aa85f8644ddc318ff4a328d1443c8
github.com
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-j86w-mfgw-fxj9
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