Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-22214 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-22214 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-22214?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.8, published 12 January 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Riot-Os Riot up to and including 2026.01-devel-317.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-22214?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-22214 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in an operating system.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-22214?
- Check whether you run Riot-Os Riot at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A stack-based buffer overflow exists in the RIOT OS 'ethos' utility within the _handle_char() function. The vulnerability is caused by a lack of bounds checking when appending incoming serial frame bytes to a fixed-size stack buffer (serial->frame). An attacker can exploit this by sending crafted serial or TCP-framed input that exceeds the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size of 9000 bytes. This results in a write past the end of the buffer, leading to memory corruption, application crashes, and potentially arbitrary code execution. The flaw is reachable via network-based TCP-framed input if ethos is configured to listen for remote connections.
Affected products
- RIOT-OS RIOT OS up to and including 2026.01-devel-317
Timeline
- 2026-01-10: disclosed: Initial disclosure on Full Disclosure mailing list
- 2026-01-12: advisory: NVD and VulnCheck advisory published