# CVE-2026-10774: PSA key-slot leak in Bluetooth Mesh subnet deletion leading to resource-exhaustion DoS

> Repeated Bluetooth Mesh subnet key operations leak PSA key slots, exhausting resources and causing denial of service until reboot.

- **Severity:** Low 2.4 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 2 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 31 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-6q7g-798f-76p2

## What is CVE-2026-10774?

CVE-2026-10774 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Zephyrproject Zephyr, published on 2 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Zephyr's Bluetooth Mesh subnet key management leaks one PSA Crypto key slot on every subnet-key teardown. In subsys/bluetooth/mesh/subnet.c, net_keys_create() imports the Private Beacon Key into a PSA key slot under CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS (enabled by default), but subnet_keys_destroy() guarded the matching psa_destroy_key() with CONFIG_BT_MESH_V1d1. That Kconfig symbol was removed when explicit Mesh 1.0.1 support was dropped, so the destroy branch became permanently dead code and the import is never balanced by a destroy.

The imbalanced teardown is reached every time subnet keys are destroyed: deleting a subnet (Config Server NetKey Delete), completing a Key Refresh Procedure (which retires the old key set), and resetting/re-provisioning the node. The over-the-air triggers are processed only under the node's device key, so they are exercisable by the provisioner or network administrator that owns the node, reachable over the Bluetooth Mesh network.

With the default CONFIG_MBEDTLS_PSA_KEY_SLOT_COUNT of 16, repeated add/delete or key-refresh cycles exhaust the shared PSA key-slot pool after roughly a dozen rounds. Once exhausted, bt_mesh_private_beacon_key() and thus subnet creation fail: the node can no longer add subnets or complete key refresh, and other PSA crypto consumers on the device may be starved, until the device is rebooted. The fix aligns the destroy guard with the import guard (CONFIG_BT_MESH_PRIV_BEACONS) so each slot is freed.

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-10774?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Zephyrproject Zephyr.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-10774?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-10774 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-10774 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-10774 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Zephyrproject Zephyr

- [CVE-2026-5067](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-5067/): Out-of-bounds read/write in HTTP WebSocket upgrade via non-null-terminated Sec-WebSocket-Key (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2022-3806](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-3806/): Bluetooth HCI Error Handling Double Free (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-14199](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14199/): Memory corruption in getaddrinfo (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2018-1000800](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-1000800/): Null dereference in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2021-3329](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-3329/): DOS: Incorrect handling of the initial HCI ACL_MTU handshake packet leads to crash of bluetooth host layer (critical 9.6)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-10774 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-10774 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Zephyrproject Zephyr, published on 2 Aug 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-10774 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Zephyrproject Zephyr. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-10774/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-10774/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-10774
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-10774
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-10774

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-10774/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.