sys_rand_get() silently returns an unwritten buffer when the entropy device is not ready
- Exploited
- No known exploitation
- Fix
- Fixed in 4.5.0
- Who is exposed
- Not reported
Do first: Upgrade to a fixed version: 4.5.0.
- Exploitation?/40Exploitation: unknown (data gap). No CISA SSVC exploitation rating yet
- Exposure17/25No login or user action needed per the CVSS vector, reachable over the network without a login · Data gap: No advisory context yet
- Reach?/20Reach: unknown (data gap). No tracked technology or package matched
- Severity4.8/10CVSS 4.8
- No patch0/5No signal
What would change the score
- Would score about 67 if added to CISA KEV
- Would score about 62 if CISA's SSVC rates exploitation active
- Would score about 27 if advisories confirm default setups are exposed
CVE-2026-87043 is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. No public exploit code is tracked. It is rated CVSS 4.8 (medium) and affects zephyr; fixed in 4.5.0.
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- Published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- FIRST's estimate of the chance attackers exploit it in the next 30 days, updated daily.What do these mean? →
- 0.18% · 7th percentile
- A 0-100 score for how much a CVE matters across the industry: exploitation, exposure, how widely the software is used, severity and whether a fix exists.What do these mean? →
- 22/100 · provisional
- Fix
- Fixed in 4.5.0
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
The entropy-device random number generator in subsys/random/random_entropy_device.c returned early with -ENODEV from rand_get() as soon as device_is_ready() failed, before reaching the non-cryptographic system-timer fallback further down the same function. Because z_impl_sys_rand_get() returns void and discards that error — and the public sys_rand_get() syscall is itself declared void, so it cannot report failure — the caller's output buffer was left untouched and its previous contents were handed back as random data. The thin wrappers make this a plain uninitialized read: sys_rand32_get() declares uint32_t ret;, calls sys_rand_get(&ret, sizeof(ret)) and returns ret. The "not ready" state is a normal runtime condition rather than a fault. Entropy drivers initialise at PRE_KERNEL_1 with CONFIG_ENTROPY_INIT_PRIORITY (default 50), so any earlier initialiser — kernel objects run at priority 30 — observes an unready device; the sibling generator subsys/random/random_xoshiro128.c and z_early_rand_get() in kernel/init.c both already carried an explicit timer fallback for exactly this case. The state is also permanent for the boot when an entropy driver's init hook fails, which several in-tree drivers can do on real hardware (entropy_stm32 on an RNG clock configuration error, entropy_psa_crypto when psa_crypto_init() fails, entropy_nrf_cracen, entropy_esp32, entropy_virtio). When this occurs, every non-cryptographic random value in the system is either a constant or stale memory. coap_next_token() in subsys/net/lib/coap/coap.c fills a static buffer, so every CoAP token becomes the same .bss constant; tcp_init_isn() in subsys/net/ip/tcp.c returns an uninitialized stack word as the TCP initial sequence number; DHCPv4/DHCPv6 transaction IDs, WebSocket masking keys and RTP SSRCs are similarly degraded, and arch/arm64/core/pac.c derives per-thread Pointer Authentication keys from the same source. Where the bytes are transmitted directly — SSH packet padding, the netmidi2 session nonce, a DTLS connection ID on builds without CONFIG_CSPRNG_ENABLED — stale caller stack or heap contents are disclosed on the wire. The fix initialises ret to -ENODEV and only calls entropy_get_entropy() when the device is ready, so the not-ready case now falls through to the timer fallback and the buffer is always written. The cryptographically secure path is unchanged: sys_csrand_get() still propagates the error to the caller and never silently degrades. An attacker cannot induce the unready state, but can observe and exploit the resulting non-random values remotely on an affected device.
What to do
Upgrade to a fixed version: 4.5.0.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- zephyr
From 4.4.0 · fixed in 4.5.0
Evidence 2
- Advisory
- Patch
Corrections
None so far.
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Questions about CVE-2026-87043
Is CVE-2026-87043 being exploited?
It is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CISA's SSVC assessment does not mark exploitation as active. That does not mean it has not been attacked: vendors and researchers can report attacks before CISA lists them. No public exploit code is tracked.Source: cve.now feed data
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-87043?
zephyr: from 4.4.0 before 4.5.0.Source: cve.now feed data
How do I fix CVE-2026-87043?
Upgrade to a fixed version: 4.5.0.Source: cve.now feed data