Description
U-Boot through 2026.04-rc3 contains an integer underflow vulnerability in the tcp_rx_state_machine() function (net/tcp.c) that allows a network-adjacent attacker to crash the bootloader by sending a malformed TCP SYN+ACK packet with a manipulated data offset field causing payload_len to become negative. When the TCP_SYN_SENT handler calls tcp_rx_user_data() without invoking tcp_seg_in_wnd() validation, the negative payload_len is implicitly converted to a large unsigned integer (e.g., 0xFFFFFFD8) and passed to memcpy() in store_block(), causing an immediate crash that prevents device boot and may enable memory corruption when CONFIG_LMB is disabled.
Problem types
Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)
Product status
Any version
Credits
Kazuma Matsumoto, a security researcher at GMO Cybersecurity by IERAE, Inc.
VulnCheck
References
y637f9qq2x.com/posts/u-boot-tcp-nfs-vulns/
lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2026-May/617853.html (Mailing List Outreach)
u-boot.org/ (Project Webpage)
www.vulncheck.com/...-underflow-dos-via-tcp-rx-state-machine