Missing write validation of user-supplied handle pointer in the RTIO syscall verifier allows arbitrary kernel write

Summary

The userspace verifier z_vrfy_rtio_sqe_copy_in_get_handles() in subsys/rtio/rtio_syscalls.c (subsys/rtio/rtio_handlers.c before v4.3.0) validated the RTIO object handle and the sqes input array, but not the handle out-parameter. On the first loop iteration it executed *handle = sqe, storing the kernel address of the newly acquired submission-queue entry through a pointer taken verbatim from user mode, with no K_SYSCALL_MEMORY_WRITE check in front of it. Any user-mode thread that has been granted a struct rtio kernel object can invoke the syscall with an arbitrary address in handle. That is the ordinary way an unprivileged thread uses the RTIO API, for example via sensor_read_async_mempool() or the async ADC helpers, which call rtio_sqe_copy_in_get_handles() internally. The store happens in supervisor mode before any submission-entry validation, so it fires regardless of whether the SQE contents are subsequently rejected. Only builds with CONFIG_USERSPACE and CONFIG_RTIO are affected; without CONFIG_USERSPACE the verifier is not compiled and the caller is already privileged. The write address is fully attacker-chosen and the written value is a pointer into the caller's own RTIO ring, whose contents the caller controls (the following *sqe = sqes[i] copies an attacker-supplied struct rtio_sqe into that slot). This yields a write-what-where primitive placing a pointer to attacker-controlled data at any kernel address, sufficient to corrupt kernel function pointers, thread structures, or memory-domain partition tables, and thus to escalate from user mode to kernel mode, defeating the isolation boundary CONFIG_USERSPACE is meant to enforce. At minimum it is a reliable kernel memory-corruption and crash primitive. The reporter reproduced the write on qemu_x86: a K_USER thread changed a supervisor global from NULL to a live kernel SQE pointer. The fix adds K_SYSCALL_MEMORY_WRITE(handle, sizeof(*handle)) (guarded by the existing optional-NULL semantics) before the loop, so the destination must lie in the calling thread's writable memory domain or the thread is terminated by K_OOPS. The neighbouring verifier z_vrfy_rtio_cqe_get_mempool_buffer(), which checked its buff/buff_len out-parameters only for read although the implementation writes through them, was hardened separately by bea93400138 ("rtio: syscalls: validate output params as writable"); that residual was materially weaker, since a read check still confines the target to the caller's own memory domain.

Timeline

1. Sep 28, 2026, 7:59 PM UTCCVE published
2. Sep 30, 2026, 7:45 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total

3. Sep 30, 2026, 8:11 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• zephyr

  From 3.4.0 · fixed in 4.4.2

References 2