NULL pointer dereference in the Zephyr USB host stack when a device reports zero configurationsCVE-2026-90587

usbh_device_init() in subsys/usb/host/usbh_device.c rejects a device whose device descriptor advertises bNumConfigurations == 0, but it only logs the error and jumps to the cleanup label without setting the return code. At that point the local err is still 0 from the preceding successful descriptor read, so the function returns success while having skipped usbh_device_set_configuration() — the only place udev->cfg_desc is allocated. The device structure is zero-initialised by usbh_device_alloc(), so udev->cfg_desc remains NULL. usbh_device_connect() treats the zero return as a successful enumeration and calls usbh_class_probe_device(), which starts its descriptor walk from udev->cfg_desc. usbh_desc_get_next_function() passes that NULL pointer to usbh_desc_is_valid(), whose only guard compares the caller-supplied size, so head->bLength is read through a NULL pointer. The condition is triggered entirely by the attached peripheral: attaching a USB device (or any USB gadget emulating one) that reports bNumConfigurations = 0 reaches the defect directly from the UHC_EVT_DEV_CONNECTED_FS/_HS event handler in subsys/usb/host/usbh_core.c, with no authentication and no user interaction beyond the physical attachment. On targets where page zero is unmapped or CONFIG_NULL_POINTER_EXCEPTION_DETECTION is enabled this raises a fatal exception in the USB host thread, denying service to the host. Where address zero is readable, the descriptor walker instead parses low memory as a descriptor chain and can dispatch a class probe() with attacker-influenced values, causing further out-of-bounds reads through the still-NULL udev->cfg_desc in usbh_desc_get_iface(). No attacker-controlled write was identified, so the impact is availability plus a bounded out-of-bounds read. Note that CONFIG_USB_HOST_STACK is marked experimental.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.