Bug 2451206 (CVE-2026-23383)

Summary: CVE-2026-23383 kernel: bpf, arm64: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler on arm64 architectures. The BPF JIT allocator incorrectly requests a 4-byte alignment for its buffer, while a critical `target` field within the `bpf_plt` structure requires 8-byte alignment. This misalignment can lead to a "torn read" when the `target` field is updated concurrently, causing the JIT to jump to a corrupted memory address. An attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability to achieve arbitrary code execution.
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-03-25 11:04:38 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf, arm64: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing

struct bpf_plt contains a u64 target field. Currently, the BPF JIT
allocator requests an alignment of 4 bytes (sizeof(u32)) for the JIT
buffer.

Because the base address of the JIT buffer can be 4-byte aligned (e.g.,
ending in 0x4 or 0xc), the relative padding logic in build_plt() fails
to ensure that target lands on an 8-byte boundary.

This leads to two issues:
1. UBSAN reports misaligned-access warnings when dereferencing the
   structure.
2. More critically, target is updated concurrently via WRITE_ONCE() in
   bpf_arch_text_poke() while the JIT'd code executes ldr. On arm64,
   64-bit loads/stores are only guaranteed to be single-copy atomic if
   they are 64-bit aligned. A misaligned target risks a torn read,
   causing the JIT to jump to a corrupted address.

Fix this by increasing the allocation alignment requirement to 8 bytes
(sizeof(u64)) in bpf_jit_binary_pack_alloc(). This anchors the base of
the JIT buffer to an 8-byte boundary, allowing the relative padding math
in build_plt() to correctly align the target field.