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)
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
- <4.4.2
Matching in nixpkgs
pkgs.python313Packages.smoke-zephyr
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pkgs.python314Packages.smoke-zephyr
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pkgs.python313Packages.zephyr-python-api
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pkgs.python314Packages.zephyr-python-api
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pkgs.python313Packages.zephyr-test-management
Wrappers for both Zephyr Scale and Zephyr Squad (TM4J) REST APIs
Package maintainers
-
@fabaff Fabian Affolter <mail@fabian-affolter.ch>
-
@Steinhagen Viorel-Cătălin Răpițeanu <rapiteanu.catalin@gmail.com>