The virtio PCI driver (drivers/virtio/virtio_pci.c) parses a device's PCI capability list during driver initialization. In virtio_pci_read_cap() the device-supplied capability length byte cap_len (read from PCI config space via pcie_conf_read()) was only checked with assert(tmp.cap_len == cap_struct_size). That assert resolves to __ASSERT_NO_MSG(), gated by CONFIG_ASSERT, which defaults off in production builds, so the value reached the copy logic completely unvalidated. The length then drives a loop that copies extra capability dwords into a fixed-size stack buffer supplied by the caller. A cap_len below the 24-byte base struct virtio_pci_cap underflows the unsigned extra_data_words count to a near-SIZE_MAX value, producing an effectively unbounded stack write; a cap_len above the caller's buffer (up to 255) writes up to roughly 228 bytes of device-controlled data past the buffer. Both are out-of-bounds writes of attacker-controlled content executed in kernel mode during boot-time device probe. The input originates from the virtio device. In the common deployment where Zephyr runs as a guest under a hypervisor, the device backend is the host, which already fully outranks the guest, so the bug yields no privilege escalation. The exploitable case is a virtio device that is untrusted relative to the Zephyr kernel — an untrusted or physical/passthrough virtio PCIe device on a bare-metal system, or a confidential-computing posture where the guest must defend against the host — where a malicious device can corrupt the kernel stack and potentially achieve code execution or a crash. The fix replaces the compiled-out assert with a runtime range check rejecting cap_len outside [sizeof(struct virtio_pci_cap), cap_struct_size] before any arithmetic or copy.
| Métrique | Valeur | Interprétation |
|---|---|---|
|
AV (Vecteur d'Attaque)
Attack Vector
|
Physical (P)
|
Exploit nécessite un accès physique à l'appareil |
|
AC (Complexité d'Attaque)
Attack Complexity
|
Low (L)
|
Peu de conditions requises pour exploiter |
|
PR (Privilèges Requis)
Privileges Required
|
None (N)
|
Aucune authentification requise |
|
UI (Interaction Utilisateur)
User Interaction
|
None (N)
|
Aucune interaction utilisateur nécessaire |
|
S (Périmètre)
Scope
|
Unchanged (U)
|
Impact reste dans le périmètre du composant compromis |
|
C (Impact Confidentialité)
Confidentiality Impact
|
None (N)
|
Aucune divulgation d'informations |
|
I (Impact Intégrité)
Integrity Impact
|
High (H)
|
Modification totale des données possible |
|
A (Impact Disponibilité)
Availability Impact
|
High (H)
|
Interruption totale du service possible |
Out-of-bounds stack write in Zephyr virtio PCI driver from unvalidated device-supplied capability length