CVE.org (no NVD analysis yet)· CNA zephyr

CVE-2026-79977: WireGuard peer endpoint learned from unauthenticated transport-data messages allows off-path tunnel hijack in Zephyr

HighCVSS 8.2 · v3.1—No exploit Fix available

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 32/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.20% (FIRST EPSS).
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
According to CISA the attack is automatable: targets can be found by mass scanning.
Fixed version: zephyrproject zephyr 4.5.0.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to zephyrproject zephyr 4.5.0 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

The WireGuard VPN service in subsys/net/lib/wireguard/wg.c updated the peer endpoint from a message it could not authenticate. In handle_transport_data(), when the 32-bit receiver index of an incoming transport-data message matched no session, the code both scheduled a new handshake and copied the datagram's source address into peer->endpoint with memcpy(&peer->endpoint, peer_addr, sizeof(peer->endpoint)). Because the receiver index is unknown, there is no key with which such a message could be verified, so the address written into peer->endpoint is entirely attacker-supplied. Every other endpoint update in the implementation happens only after authentication — after the Noise handshake in handle_handshake_init(), or after AEAD decryption plus the anti-replay check in wg_process_data_message(). The WireGuard listener is registered with net_udp_register() using no remote address or port filter and defaults to UDP port 51820 (CONFIG_WIREGUARD_PORT), and wg_ctrl_recv() resolves the peer by interface rather than by any cryptographic identity. Any host able to send a UDP datagram to that port can therefore reach the defect off-path, with no need to observe legitimate traffic: a 16-byte datagram carrying the transport-data type, zeroed reserved bytes and an arbitrary receiver index is sufficient. The vulnerable branch runs whenever the peer has neither a valid handshake nor a current keypair — the state at boot and after a session expires. A single spoofed datagram redirects peer->endpoint to an address of the attacker's choosing, and all subsequent handshake initiations, keepalives and encrypted data packets are sent there. The legitimate peer never receives the initiations and so never re-authenticates, and nothing resets the endpoint afterwards, leaving the tunnel persistently unusable on devices whose peer does not initiate handshakes itself. The attacker can also relay the redirected initiations to the real peer to place itself in the path of the tunnel, observing ciphertext and traffic metadata and selectively dropping packets. WireGuard's end-to-end cryptography still prevents decryption or forgery of tunnel content, so the impact is loss of availability plus limited confidentiality, not key compromise. The fix removes the endpoint learning from this path entirely: the stale-session recovery is kept, but the handshake is sent only to an endpoint learnt from an authenticated message, falling back to the configured cfg_endpoint, and the message is dropped when neither is known. CONFIG_WIREGUARD is marked experimental and is not enabled by default.

EUVD-2026-109140

Published: Oct 23, 2026
Updated: Nov 4, 2026
EPSS: 0.2% · 10th percentile
CWE: CWE-306

Report tools

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Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 32 / 40 · 8.2 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 0.2%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Technical impact: partial

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: —
CNA · zephyr: 8.2; NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
A fix has been released

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

Is your version affected? Check it

Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

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Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (zephyr). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

zephyrproject zephyr
- 4.4.0 and later · before 4.5.0affected · semver

Same product

zephyrproject: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2023-4260Potential off-by-one buffer overflow vulnerability in the Zephyr FS subsystem
40Plan
CVE-2021-3625Buffer overflow in Zephyr USB DFU DNLOAD
40Plan
CVE-2020-10071Insufficient publish message length validation in MQTT
40Plan

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2026-79976Oct 21, 2026 · NULL pointer dereference in the MCTP I2C+GPIO target binding triggerable by a peer I2C controller
28Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2026-19741Oct 23, 2026 · OpenThread joiner autostart uses a publicly documented default Joining Device Credential (PSKd)
30Monitor
Later →CVE-2026-79978Oct 23, 2026 · Out-of-bounds write in the ADXL345 sensor driver RTIO streaming FIFO read path
14Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / package	Fixed version	Source
zephyrproject zephyr	4.5.0	Vendor (CNA)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

PublishedOct 23, 2026
Fix recordedNov 4, 2026+11 d
TodayNov 13, 2026+20 d

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

zephyrproject-rtos/zephyrcommit cbaaf3e

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

CVE-2026-5066141 days apartnet: sockets: tls: Potential out-of-bounds write/read in socket_op_vtable::connect function
35Monitor
CVE-2026-1957514 days apartType confusion in the device_deinit system call allows user-mode threads to execute arbitrary kernel code
31Monitor

Not on record for this CVE: researcher credit · public bounty program.

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: low · data can be read
Integrity: none
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: Low
Integrity impact: None
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-306 · Missing Authentication for Critical Function

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

nvd-secondary

Root cause

A function added for development or support ships to production without authentication. It often relies on the assumption that it is “only reachable from the internal network.”

The bug in code

The whole CWE-306 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1// Added for the support team
2app.post("/maintenance/reset", resetDevice);

Fixed

1if (config.maintenanceEnabled) {
2  app.post(
3    "/maintenance/reset",
4    requireSession, requireRole("admin"), resetDevice
5  );
6}

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

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Change log

Fix✗ → ✓Nov 4, 2026, 7:07 AM UTC
SSVC exploitation— → noneNov 2, 2026, 3:07 PM UTC
Exploit maturity— → noneOct 23, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →

References

github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/cbaaf3e9dbe08be21f01bd23142e1ffe91fd4db6

Show all references (1 more)

github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-w8h4-r8m3-rf5j

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records