CVE-2026-98043

NameCVE-2026-98043
DescriptionIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Don't infer non-NULL from a pointer with an unbounded offset reg_not_null() decides that a register holds a non-NULL value by looking at its type alone. For pointer types that allow arithmetic the type only guarantees a non-NULL base, in case of an unbound offset the runtime offset value might still add up to NULL. Consider the followng program: r6 = bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &0); /* present */ if (r6 == 0) return 0; r7 = bpf_map_lookup_elem(map, &1); /* absent, NULL at runtime */ r8 = r7; r8 -= r6; /* pointer - pointer: unknown scalar, -r6 */ r8 <<= 1; r8 >>= 1; /* any non-negative offset is accepted by */ /* check_reg_sane_offset_ptr() */ r6 += r8; /* verifier: map value; runtime: zero */ if (r7 != r6) return 0; *(u8 *)(r7 + 0); /* r7 is inferred non-NULL, both are zero */ At runtime both registers are zero, the comparison is true and the load faults with NULL pointer dereference. Require the offset to be within +-BPF_MAX_VAR_OFF in reg_not_null().
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
linux (PTS)bookworm6.1.176-1vulnerable
bookworm (security)6.1.187-1vulnerable
trixie6.12.107-1vulnerable
trixie (security)6.12.111-1vulnerable
forky7.2.9-1fixed
sid7.2.10-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
linuxsource(unstable)7.2.7-1

Notes

https://git.kernel.org/linus/67b529f521a6676cdfc78b91b0217d7eaa84216b (7.3-rc2)

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