CVE-2026-98037

bpf: Reject untrusted allocated-object pointers

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Sep 25, 2026
Updated
Oct 19, 2026
Reserved
Sep 25, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Reject untrusted allocated-object pointers

When the final RCU read-side critical section ends, a local kptr is demoted to PTR_UNTRUSTED but retains MEM_ALLOC. The pointer may be NULL or may refer to an object whose lifetime is no longer protected.

type_is_ptr_alloc_obj() nevertheless recognizes any PTR_TO_BTF_ID with MEM_ALLOC as a live allocated object. In particular, a refcount-only local kptr never carries NON_OWN_REF, so it still passes the bpf_refcount_acquire() argument check after RCU protection ends. The kfunc can then dereference NULL or stale memory.

Make type_is_ptr_alloc_obj() reject PTR_UNTRUSTED pointers. Since type_is_non_owning_ref() is based on the same predicate, graph kfunc arguments obey the same live-object requirement. Fault-protected reads of the demoted pointer remain valid: writes are already rejected, and read fixups use bpf_may_fault_on_deref() rather than this predicate.

[ kkd: Rewrote commit log ]

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 1b12171533a9bb23cf6fba7262b479028b65e1e8 to before 092c2874dc1b2060fa77a465a971acd4fdf87683Affected
  • 1b12171533a9bb23cf6fba7262b479028b65e1e8 to before 135d542b97fa93e32c457d49d6e7b33ca7d05baeAffected
  • 1b12171533a9bb23cf6fba7262b479028b65e1e8 to before 6b1f786ad85a0b63393b76f5e634deab1a73198cAffected
  • 1b12171533a9bb23cf6fba7262b479028b65e1e8 to before 7441ee8276641bddaf1cba7bb75ef9c1458ceb3bAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.8Affected
  • before 6.8Not affected
  • 6.12.111 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.53 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.2.7 through 7.2.*Not affected
  • 7.3 and laterNot affected

References

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