CVE-2026-5590 net: ip/tcp: Null pointer dereference can be triggered by a race condition
A race condition in Zephyr RTOS TCP teardown causes a null pointer dereference, leading to a system crash.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-5590?
CVE-2026-5590 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Zephyrproject Zephyr, published on 5 Apr 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A race condition during TCP connection teardown can cause tcp_recv() to operate on a connection that has already been released. If tcp_conn_search() returns NULL while processing a SYN packet, a NULL pointer derived from stale context data is passed to tcp_backlog_is_full() and dereferenced without validation, leading to a crash.
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-5590?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Zephyrproject Zephyr.
How do I fix CVE-2026-5590?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-5590 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-5590 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-5590 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Zephyrproject Zephyr
- CVE-2026-5067 Out-of-bounds read/write in HTTP WebSocket upgrade via non-null-terminated Sec-WebSocket-Key
- CVE-2022-3806 Bluetooth HCI Error Handling Double Free
- CVE-2017-14199 Memory corruption in getaddrinfo
- CVE-2018-1000800 Null dereference in n/a
- CVE-2021-3329 DOS: Incorrect handling of the initial HCI ACL_MTU handshake packet leads to crash of bluetooth host layer
Sources
Also known as GHSA-4vqm-pw24-g9jp.