Executive brief
PX4 Autopilot is flight control software used in autonomous drones and aircraft. A use-after-free vulnerability in its load monitoring module allows an attacker with shell access to crash the flight stack or corrupt memory by issuing a stop command, potentially destabilizing the aircraft during flight.
Technical details
A use-after-free vulnerability exists in the load_mon module's stop path where exit_and_cleanup() deletes the LoadMon object and frees the performance counter before perf_end() attempts to access it. An attacker with access to any PXH or MAVLink shell can trigger this by issuing the load_mon stop command, causing reads and writes through freed memory that corrupt heap objects and destabilize the flight stack. The vulnerability affects PX4 Autopilot through version 1.17.0. Patch availability is not indicated in the advisory.
Affected products
- PX4 Autopilot through 1.17.0
Timeline
- 2026-09-08: disclosed