Zephyr WireGuard mutates peer state before anti-replay check, enabling capture-replay endpoint hijack

Summary

CVECVE-2026-13734
StatePUBLISHED
Assignerzephyr
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-28 22:16:46 UTC
Updated2026-08-28 22:16:46 UTC
DescriptionZephyr's WireGuard VPN data-plane receive handler wg_process_data_message() in subsys/net/lib/wireguard/wg_crypto.c validated the anti-replay counter too late. After AEAD decryption of a MESSAGE_TRANSPORT_DATA packet succeeded, the code committed several peer-state changes — update_peer_addr() (endpoint roaming update), the keypair->last_rx/peer->last_rx liveness timers, and keypair_update() (promote next→current and destroy the previous keypair) — and only afterward called wg_check_replay(). On a replayed packet the replay check returned -EINVAL, but none of the preceding mutations were rolled back. The AEAD tag authenticates content but not freshness, so a replayed-but-authentic transport packet decrypts correctly. An attacker who captures one valid ciphertext off the wire (an on-path or shared-medium observer) can re-inject it from an arbitrary spoofed source address. Reaching the handler requires no credentials: it is driven directly from inbound UDP datagrams via the dispatch in subsys/net/lib/wireguard/wg.c. Because the state mutations committed before the replay check, the replay repoints the peer endpoint to the attacker-chosen source address (roaming hijack), redirecting the victim's subsequent outbound tunnel traffic until the legitimate peer's next packet re-corrects it; it also prematurely destroys the previous keypair and refreshes the RX liveness timer. The tunnel payload stays encrypted under the session keypair, so this is an integrity/availability impact (traffic redirection and session disruption), not payload disclosure. The fix moves wg_check_replay() to immediately after a successful decrypt, before any peer-state mutation, matching the WireGuard specification and the Linux reference implementation.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 6.5 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

Problem Types: CWE-294 | CWE-294 auth


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
3.1CNACVSS6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Zephyrproject Zephyr affected 4.4.0 4.4.2 semver Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/security/advisories/GHSA-x7q7-fjx9-... [email protected] github.com
github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/commit/260c32ef9a89824bd25e17170e77... [email protected] github.com
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