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Untriaged
Permalink CVE-2026-12629
4.6 MEDIUM
  • CVSS version (CVSS): 3.1
  • Attack Vector (AV): Physical (P)
  • Attack Complexity (AC): Low (L)
  • Privileges Required (PR): None (N)
  • User Interaction (UI): None (N)
  • Scope (S): Unchanged (U)
  • Confidentiality (C): None (N)
  • Integrity (I): None (N)
  • Availability (A): High (H)
  • Modified Attack Vector (MAV): Physical (P)
  • Modified Attack Complexity (MAC): Low (L)
  • Modified Privileges Required (MPR): None (N)
  • Modified User Interaction (MUI): None (N)
  • Modified Confidentiality (MC): None (N)
  • Modified Scope (MS): Unchanged (U)
  • Modified Integrity (MI): None (N)
  • Modified Availability (MA): High (H)
created 1 week, 5 days ago Activity log
  • Created suggestion
PL011 UART error interrupts never cleared, enabling an external-peer interrupt-storm denial of service

The ARM PL011 UART driver in drivers/serial/uart_pl011.c fails to acknowledge receive error interrupts. On the PL011, the framing, parity, break, and overrun error interrupts (PL011_IMSC_ERROR_MASK) are cleared only by writing the interrupt-clear register UARTICR; reading the data register clears the RX interrupt and the per-byte RSR status but not the error interrupt status in MIS. The interrupt service routine pl011_isr() acknowledged only the CTS modem-status interrupt and never wrote icr for the error bits, so an asserted error interrupt remains pending after the ISR returns. When an application enables error-interrupt reporting via the public uart_irq_err_enable() API, an attacker who controls the serial peer can deterministically assert these error bits by injecting line errors on the RX line — a baud/stop-bit mismatch or mid-character break (framing/break error), a flipped parity bit (parity error), or FIFO flooding (overrun error). Because the error interrupt is never cleared, the interrupt line stays asserted and the CPU re-enters pl011_isr() immediately and indefinitely, producing an interrupt-storm livelock from which the core makes no forward progress. The impact is an availability-only denial of service (permanent hang), reachable from an external or removable UART peer. Exploitation is gated by configuration: the error interrupt is off by default and no in-tree subsystem enables it, so only applications that explicitly call uart_irq_err_enable() on a PL011-based, interrupt-driven port are affected. The fix makes pl011_isr() acknowledge the pending error bits via uart->icr, breaking the loop, and additionally clears the latched RSR status in pl011_err_check().

References

Affected products

zephyr
  • <4.4.2

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