CVE-2026-18416 Out-of-bounds read in CoAP well-known-core Uri-Query href matching (match_path_uri)
An out-of-bounds read in Zephyr RTOS CoAP server allows attackers to read uninitialized stack memory via crafted URI queries.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-18416?
CVE-2026-18416 is a low-severity vulnerability in Zephyrproject Zephyr, published on 28 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The CoAP link-format helper match_path_uri() in subsys/net/lib/coap/coap_link_format.c compares a registered resource path against the URI carried in a Uri-Query href= option. That URI is not NUL terminated, but the inner character loop advanced its index k once per path character without ever testing it against the option length len. When a registered path segment is longer than the supplied URI and the URI is a prefix of it, the loop reads uri[len] and beyond, past the end of the option value.
The path is reached from coap_well_known_core_get_len() and coap_well_known_core_get() via match_queries_resource(), i.e. by any unauthenticated GET /.well-known/core?href=/<prefix> request to a device that serves /.well-known/core (for the CoAP server subsystem, CONFIG_COAP_SERVER_WELL_KNOWN_CORE, default y) and has at least one resource that declares struct coap_core_metadata attributes.
The over-read does not reach the receive buffer. The well-known-core builders parse the query into a stack-local struct coap_option, whose value is a fixed array (value[12], or CONFIG_COAP_EXTENDED_OPTIONS_LEN_VALUE bytes) that the option bytes are copied into, so uri points into that copy. Reading past len therefore reads the unused, uninitialized tail of the array and, when the option fills it, the bytes just past it in the same stack frame. (In the ZoAP library of v1.8.0 to v1.9.x the option value was instead a pointer into the received packet, and the over-read ran past the option inside the packet buffer.)
The impact is bounded. The number of bytes read past the end is limited by the length of the resource path segment, and each additional byte is only read if it happens to equal the next path character, so in practice the over-read is one byte. It also cannot influence the response: returning a match requires the final compared index to be len - 1 or len, both in bounds, so out-of-bounds bytes only ever steer the loop to the next candidate resource. The consequence is undefined behaviour, not information disclosure and not a matching error.
The fix adds a k >= len guard at the top of the inner loop, so every uri[k] dereference is within the option value while still allowing a trailing * wildcard to match a longer path.
Weakness: CWE-125
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-18416?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Zephyrproject Zephyr.
How do I fix CVE-2026-18416?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-18416 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-18416 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-18416 in the wild and no public exploit code.
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- CVE-2018-1000800 Null dereference in n/a
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Sources
Also known as GHSA-m3mv-vvm4-h58g.