The receive path of the NXP KW41Z IEEE 802.15.4 driver, kw41z_rx() in drivers/ieee802154/ieee802154_kw41z.c, computed the payload size as pkt_len = len - KW41Z_FCS_LENGTH in a uint8_t, where len is the frame length reported by the radio. The interrupt handler kw41z_isr() obtained that length from the RX_FRAME_LENGTH field of the ZLL IRQSTS register — a copy of the PHY header length byte of the frame received over the air — and only rejected the value zero. A reported length of one therefore underflowed to pkt_len == 255.
Because the packet is allocated with NET_AF_UNSPEC on a non-Ethernet L2, net_pkt_rx_alloc_with_buffer() does not clamp the request to the interface MTU; with the default fixed-size buffer pool (CONFIG_NET_BUF_FIXED_DATA_SIZE, CONFIG_NET_BUF_DATA_SIZE=128) the allocation succeeded as a chain of two fragments. The subsequent register-to-buffer copy loops write into the first fragment only, so 255 bytes were written into a 128-byte net_buf data block, overrunning it by up to 127 bytes into adjacent network-buffer-pool memory, and reading up to 128 bytes past the end of the radio's PKT_BUFFER_RX register array.
The length field originates from an unauthenticated frame transmitted by any device within 802.15.4 radio range, and is captured by the hardware at PHY-header time — before frame filtering has completed — while the handler samples it after clearing the interrupt status, so an attacker flooding frames with a length byte of one can drive the underflow. The impact is memory corruption in the shared receive buffer pool from interrupt context, most plausibly a crash or corruption of other packets' data; the overflowing bytes are radio register contents rather than attacker-authored data, which bounds the integrity impact.
The fix rejects any length below KW41Z_FCS_LENGTH and additionally verifies net_buf_tailroom() of the first fragment before the copy loops, which also covers the CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD variant of the size computation.
Because the packet is allocated with NET_AF_UNSPEC on a non-Ethernet L2, net_pkt_rx_alloc_with_buffer() does not clamp the request to the interface MTU; with the default fixed-size buffer pool (CONFIG_NET_BUF_FIXED_DATA_SIZE, CONFIG_NET_BUF_DATA_SIZE=128) the allocation succeeded as a chain of two fragments. The subsequent register-to-buffer copy loops write into the first fragment only, so 255 bytes were written into a 128-byte net_buf data block, overrunning it by up to 127 bytes into adjacent network-buffer-pool memory, and reading up to 128 bytes past the end of the radio's PKT_BUFFER_RX register array.
The length field originates from an unauthenticated frame transmitted by any device within 802.15.4 radio range, and is captured by the hardware at PHY-header time — before frame filtering has completed — while the handler samples it after clearing the interrupt status, so an attacker flooding frames with a length byte of one can drive the underflow. The impact is memory corruption in the shared receive buffer pool from interrupt context, most plausibly a crash or corruption of other packets' data; the overflowing bytes are radio register contents rather than attacker-authored data, which bounds the integrity impact.
The fix rejects any length below KW41Z_FCS_LENGTH and additionally verifies net_buf_tailroom() of the first fragment before the copy loops, which also covers the CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD variant of the size computation.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
No data.
No data.
No data.
No data.
Advisories
No advisories yet.
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | The receive path of the NXP KW41Z IEEE 802.15.4 driver, kw41z_rx() in drivers/ieee802154/ieee802154_kw41z.c, computed the payload size as pkt_len = len - KW41Z_FCS_LENGTH in a uint8_t, where len is the frame length reported by the radio. The interrupt handler kw41z_isr() obtained that length from the RX_FRAME_LENGTH field of the ZLL IRQSTS register — a copy of the PHY header length byte of the frame received over the air — and only rejected the value zero. A reported length of one therefore underflowed to pkt_len == 255. Because the packet is allocated with NET_AF_UNSPEC on a non-Ethernet L2, net_pkt_rx_alloc_with_buffer() does not clamp the request to the interface MTU; with the default fixed-size buffer pool (CONFIG_NET_BUF_FIXED_DATA_SIZE, CONFIG_NET_BUF_DATA_SIZE=128) the allocation succeeded as a chain of two fragments. The subsequent register-to-buffer copy loops write into the first fragment only, so 255 bytes were written into a 128-byte net_buf data block, overrunning it by up to 127 bytes into adjacent network-buffer-pool memory, and reading up to 128 bytes past the end of the radio's PKT_BUFFER_RX register array. The length field originates from an unauthenticated frame transmitted by any device within 802.15.4 radio range, and is captured by the hardware at PHY-header time — before frame filtering has completed — while the handler samples it after clearing the interrupt status, so an attacker flooding frames with a length byte of one can drive the underflow. The impact is memory corruption in the shared receive buffer pool from interrupt context, most plausibly a crash or corruption of other packets' data; the overflowing bytes are radio register contents rather than attacker-authored data, which bounds the integrity impact. The fix rejects any length below KW41Z_FCS_LENGTH and additionally verifies net_buf_tailroom() of the first fragment before the copy loops, which also covers the CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD variant of the size computation. | |
| Title | Integer underflow of the radio-reported frame length causes an out-of-bounds write in the NXP KW41Z IEEE 802.15.4 driver | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-191 | |
| References |
| |
| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
|
Projects
Sign in to view the affected projects.
MITRE
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: zephyr
Published:
Updated: 2026-10-14T16:45:56.541Z
Reserved: 2026-08-17T16:17:45.295Z
Link: CVE-2026-75083
Vulnrichment
No data.
NVD
Status : Received
Published: 2026-10-14T17:19:10.307
Modified: 2026-10-14T17:19:10.307
Link: CVE-2026-75083
Redhat
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.
Weaknesses