Bug 2541055 (CVE-2026-98036)

Summary: CVE-2026-98036 kernel: bpf: Preserve special fields in recycled rhtab elements
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) subsystem. A local user with permission to run BPF programs can trigger a use-after-free condition, potentially leading to a system crash, denial of service (DoS), or privilege escalation. This flaw occurs during the recycling of resizable hash table elements, where the kernel overwrites references to active timers before they are cancelled. As a result, the timer callback executes with memory pointers referencing already-freed memory.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 10:45:01 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Preserve special fields in recycled rhtab elements

rhtab_map_update_elem() initializes special fields after obtaining an
element from bpf_mem_cache_alloc(). The allocator can return a fresh,
zeroed unit, or recycle one from its RCU-pending lists before the
registered destructor has run.

A BPF program can retain a map-value pointer after deleting its element
and initialize and arm a timer through that pointer. If the deleted unit
is recycled, check_and_init_map_value() clears the only pointer to the
timer. Neither a later deletion nor rhtab_mem_dtor() can then cancel it,
and the callback can run with its key and value pointing into freed memory.

Do not reinitialize special fields on insertion. Fresh allocator units are
already zeroed. For recycled units, the special fields are ownership state
that must remain visible to the eventual destructor. copy_map_value()
already skips those fields, matching the non-preallocated hash-map path and
the lifecycle established by commit 275c30bcee66 ("bpf: Don't reinit map
value in prealloc_lru_pop").

[ kkd: Split out the fix and rewrote the commit log ]