OP-TEE up to 4.10.x Shared Memory Cleanup core/tee/entry_std.c cleanup_shm_refs memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in OP-TEE up to 4.10.x. The affected element is the function cleanup_shm_refs of the file core/tee/entry_std.c of the component Shared Memory Cleanup. Performing a manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-42546. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in OP-TEE up to 4.10.x. It has been classified as critical. This affects the function cleanup_shm_refs of the file core/tee/entry_std.c of the component Shared Memory Cleanup. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

OP-TEE is a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) designed as companion to a non-secure Linux kernel running on Arm; Cortex-A cores using the TrustZone technology. Starting in version 3.3.0 and prior to version 4.11.0, a resource leak exists in OP-TEE’s shared memory cleanup logic because the function `cleanup_shm_refs()` in `core/tee/entry_std.c` fails to apply a required bitmask (`OPTEE_MSG_ATTR_TYPE_MASK`) to parameter attributes. When processing non-contiguous memory parameters from a normal-world caller, the system fails to match the attribute type in its internal switch statement and skips the necessary mobj_put() call. This results in a persistent reference leak of `mobj_reg_shm` objects, which remain on internal lists with dangling refcounts. This affects non-FF-A configurations that support non-contiguous, non-secure shared memory. Over time, these accumulated leaks progressively consume the secure-world heap, degrading the system's ability to service trusted application operations and eventually requiring a reboot to recover. Version 4.11.0 contains a patch. No known workarounds are available.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-42546 since 04/28/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1499 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 4.11.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Name

• OP-TEE

Version

• 4.0
• 4.1
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 4.4
• 4.5
• 4.6
• 4.7
• 4.8
• 4.9
• 4.10

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