Executive brief
RT-Thread is an open-source real-time operating system used in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. A security flaw in how the system handles network address lookups could allow a local attacker to cause memory corruption. This could lead to a system crash or instability, potentially disrupting the operations of the affected IoT device.
Technical details
A memory corruption vulnerability (CWE-119) exists in RT-Thread up to version 5.0.2 within the 'sys_getaddrinfo' system call located in 'components/lwp/lwp_syscall.c'. The issue stems from the kernel trusting a nested user-provided pointer ('ai_addr') without adequate validation. In builds using the Memory Management Unit (MMU), the kernel dereferences this nested pointer and performs writes in kernel context, allowing a local process to redirect kernel writes to memory locations outside of the validated user space. An attacker with local access can exploit this to cause memory corruption and system instability. A pull request (#11454) has been submitted to harden pointer handling by copying user inputs to kernel temporaries and validating nested destinations before writeback.
Affected products
- RT-Thread RT-Thread up to 5.0.2
Timeline
- 2026-06-09: patched: Pull request to fix the issue submitted on GitHub
- 2026-07-03: advisory: NVD and VulDB published the vulnerability details