CVE-2026-42807 in COINES_SDK
Summary
by MITRE • 09/10/2026
A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the PC bridge protocol decoder of BoschSensortec COINES_SDK (versions 2.10 through 2.12.2) allows attackers to cause a denial of service (process crash) or potentially execute arbitrary code.
The bridge decoder ({{bridge_decoder.c}}) trusts the packet length field provided by the external device and forwards it to the host response queue ({{mqueue_add_data}}) without validating the bounds of the destination buffer.
A malicious or compromised USB or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) peripheral can advertise a payload size up to ~3 KB, which exceeds the default queue slot size of 255 bytes.
This results in an unbounded heap overwrite ({{memcpy}}), corrupting adjacent heap metadata on the host system when processing the device's response.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/10/2026
The vulnerability identified within BoschSensortec COINES_SDK versions 2.10 through 2.12.2 represents a critical security flaw located in the PC bridge protocol decoder, specifically within the source file bridge_decoder.c. This component is responsible for handling communication between external sensors and the host system via interfaces such as USB or Bluetooth Low Energy. The core technical deficiency lies in the failure to validate input data before processing it into internal buffers. Specifically, when a peripheral device sends a packet, the decoder relies on the length field provided by that external device without performing any bounds checking against the capacity of the destination buffer. This design oversight allows an attacker who controls or compromises a connected sensor to dictate how much memory is written during the data transfer process.
The operational mechanism of this exploitation involves sending a maliciously crafted packet with a payload size significantly larger than what the host system expects. The default queue slot size in the mqueue_add_data function is limited to 255 bytes, yet an attacker can advertise a payload size up to approximately three kilobytes. When the decoder processes this oversized response, it invokes memcpy to copy the data into the fixed-size buffer. Because there are no checks to ensure the destination buffer has sufficient space for the incoming data, this results in an unbounded heap overwrite. The excess bytes spill over from the intended buffer location into adjacent memory regions on the host system's heap.
The consequences of this heap corruption are severe and multifaceted. In many scenarios, the immediate result is a denial of service condition where the application crashes due to corrupted heap metadata or invalid pointer dereferences triggered by the overwritten memory structures. However, given that modern operating systems employ various heap protection mechanisms, sophisticated attackers can often manipulate these overwrites to achieve arbitrary code execution. By carefully crafting the overflow payload, an attacker might overwrite function pointers, exception handling records, or other critical control data within the heap metadata. This capability transforms a simple denial of service into a potential remote code execution vector, allowing full compromise of the host system running the COINES SDK.
From a classification perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-120, which describes buffer copy without checking size limits, and more specifically CWE-787, which addresses out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities on heap memory. In terms of attack tactics, this flaw facilitates exploitation techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under command and control or initial access vectors where an attacker leverages a trusted peripheral to inject malicious code into a host application. The trust relationship between the SDK and connected peripherals is abused here, as the system assumes all incoming data from authorized devices is safe and correctly formatted.
Mitigation strategies must focus on enforcing strict input validation at the point of entry for external device communications. Developers should implement rigorous length checks before invoking memory copy operations to ensure that the packet size does not exceed the allocated buffer capacity. Additionally, employing safer string or memory handling functions that include explicit length parameters can help prevent overflows. For users currently running affected versions, it is imperative to update to a patched version of COINES_SDK as soon as possible. Until an official patch is available, restricting physical access to USB and BLE ports on systems running this SDK can reduce the risk of exploitation by untrusted peripherals. Network segmentation and monitoring for anomalous memory usage patterns may also provide early detection indicators for such heap corruption attempts.