# CVE-2026-12999 — zephyrproject zephyr

> As of 2026-08-22, CVE-2026-12999 is a MEDIUM-severity vulnerability in zephyrproject zephyr, CVSS v3.1 5.3, EPSS 0.2% (16.2th percentile). No Threadlinqs-tracked threat campaign has been attributed to CVE-2026-12999 as of 2026-08-22; the identifier is re-checked against the Threadlinqs threat corpus on every daily ingest.

**Last updated:** 2026-08-22

## What is CVE-2026-12999?

The Infineon Airoc Wi-Fi driver's transmit callback airoc_mgmt_send() in drivers/wifi/infineon/airoc_wifi.c allocates a net_buf from the fixed airoc_pool for every outbound packet. When whd_network_send_ethernet_data() returns a synchronous failure, the underlying WHD library does not take ownership of the buffer, but the pre-fix driver returned -EIO without releasing it. Each failed transmit therefore permanently leaks one buffer from the pool. airoc_pool is small and fixed (AIROC_WIFI_TX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT + AIROC_WIFI_RX_PACKET_POOL_COUNT, default 20 buffers) and is shared by WHD's whd_host_buffer_get callback for both transmit and receive. Once enough send failures have leaked the pool dry, airoc_wifi_host_buffer_get() returns WHD_BUFFER_ALLOC_FAIL for all subsequent allocations, so both transmit and the WHD-driven receive path fail and Wi-Fi connectivity is lost until the device is rebooted. The leak occurs only on the transmit error path. A Wi-Fi-adjacent attacker can influence the conditions that cause synchronous send failures (for example by deauthenticating/disassociating the station while the local stack continues to attempt transmits), and ordinary transient failures over the device's lifetime accumulate toward the same state. Reliable on-demand triggering is of high complexity and the impact is availability-only, but the resulting denial of service is permanent and non-recoverable without a reboot. The fix releases the buffer with airoc_wifi_buffer_release() on the failure branch, returning it to the pool. The commit also removes a redundant k_sem_give() in airoc_mgmt_disconnect(); because data->sema_common is a binary semaphore (limit 1) the duplicate give merely saturated at 1 and had no security impact.

The record classifies CVE-2026-12999 under weakness class [CWE-401](https://intel.threadlinqs.com/cwe/CWE-401). Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable from an adjacent network, needs no prior authentication, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on availability. 1 affected-product entry is recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 44 days ago.

## Severity and exploitation probability

- **CVSS v3.1 base score:** 5.3 — MEDIUM (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **EPSS (FIRST):** 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16.2% of all scored CVEs
- **CISA KEV:** Not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
- **Threadlinqs priority:** 3.3/10 — a Threadlinqs composite of the CVSS base score, the EPSS percentile and public exploit availability
- **Published:** 2026-08-22

## Is CVE-2026-12999 being exploited?

It currently carries a trending score of 34 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.

## Affected products and versions

- [zephyrproject](https://intel.threadlinqs.com/vendors/zephyrproject): zephyr

## How to fix CVE-2026-12999

No vendor patch reference has been recorded for CVE-2026-12999 in the tracked sources. Follow the references below for a fix, and treat the products listed above as exposed until the vendor states otherwise.

## Threat activity tracking CVE-2026-12999

No threat campaign in the Threadlinqs corpus currently references CVE-2026-12999, in its CVE list or as an indicator. The linkage is recomputed from the live corpus on every daily ingest, so this section fills in as soon as a tracked campaign cites the identifier.

## Sources

Enriched from CVE.org, NVD, FIRST EPSS. Last verified by Threadlinqs on 2026-08-23. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

**Vendor advisory and patch**

- [github.com — patch](https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/4e6f624292ed153a762e98c7a297998c8d0b52c4)

**Other references**

- [github.com](https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-8w97-ghfm-5wjp)

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/cve/CVE-2026-12999
Full detection coverage and IOCs for threats exploiting CVE-2026-12999 via the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp