Bug 2554986 (CVE-2026-98589) - CVE-2026-98589 kernel: bpf: Reject pkt arguments in mutating subprogs
Summary: CVE-2026-98589 kernel: bpf: Reject pkt arguments in mutating subprogs
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-98589
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-10-18 15:37 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-20 04:14 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 15:37:33 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Reject pkt arguments in mutating subprogs

The verifier tracks changes in how PTR_TO_PACKET registers'
bounds are modified across subprog boundaries. PTR_TO_PACKET
registers are actually passed as PTR_TO_MEM, which is assumed
valid for the entire call. This is not the case with packet memory,
where a pskb_* call may invalidate its memory region.

Reject BPF code that passes PTR_TO_PACKET pointers to subprogs that
may mutate a packet. We cannot pass the pointer as a true PTR_TO_PACKET
because we would also need to somehow pass the PTR_TO_PACKET_META
or PTR_TO_PACKET_END to the subprog. Since we cannot avoid representing
the pointer in the subprog as PTR_TO_MEM, only permit it if the
subprog is guaranteed not to mutate the packet.


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