CVE-2026-127915

Severity CVSS v4.0:
Pending analysis
Type:
CWE-125 Out-of-bounds Read
Publication date:
13/11/2026
Last modified:
13/11/2026

Description

The MCUboot TLV iterator bootutil_tlv_iter_next() in boot/bootutil/src/tlv.c walks image trailer TLVs with a single loop guard (it-&gt;tlv_off tlv_end) and advances by sizeof(struct image_tlv) + tlv.it_len using the attacker-controlled it_len field, without validating that the entry&amp;#39;s header or payload stays within it-&gt;tlv_end. As a result the 4-byte header read can extend up to 3 bytes past the declared TLV area, and the returned (off, len) can describe a payload that runs past it.<br /> <br /> The path is pre-authentication: TLVs are parsed during bootutil_img_validate() before the signature is verified, and a crafted image can be presented through DFU / serial-recovery / OTA. However the impact is contained by surrounding guards: bootutil_img_validate() first rejects a TLV area larger than bootutil_max_image_size(), the default LOAD_IMAGE_DATA sink is flash_area_read() which bounds-checks against the flash partition and fails an out-of-partition read, and every payload consumer (EXPECTED_HASH_TLV, EXPECTED_KEY_TLV, EXPECTED_SIG_TLV, IMAGE_TLV_SEC_CNT) clamps len against a fixed buffer before copying.<br /> <br /> The residual effect in a default flash build is therefore an out-of-region read confined to the attacker&amp;#39;s own slot partition whose result is never observable, yielding at worst a clean validation failure rather than memory corruption or information disclosure. A genuine (though still bounded) out-of-bounds read remains under the non-default MCUBOOT_RAM_LOAD configuration, where LOAD_IMAGE_DATA is an unchecked memcpy. The fix is to validate each entry&amp;#39;s header and payload against it-&gt;tlv_end inside the iterator.