CVE-2026-98132 PUBLISHED

bpf: don't downgrade half-dead scalar zero spills to STACK_ZERO

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 25.09.2026 Updated: 25.09.2026

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

bpf: don't downgrade half-dead scalar zero spills to STACK_ZERO

states.c:__clean_func_state() can downgrade scalar zero spill to STACK_ZERO in the following case:

(u64 )(r10 - 8) = 0; ... checkpoint ... r1 = (u32 )(r10 - 4); ... no reads from r10-8 ...

Here 4 bytes at r10-8 are dead and verifier changes scalar spill to a combination: 0000pppp (p stands for poison). Such a change breaks precision propagation chains. All places that produce STACK_ZERO should call bpf_mark_chain_precision() for the zero source.

This patch fixes the bug in a simplest way possible: avoids converting stack spills of zero to STACK_ZERO. Two smarter approaches are possible: - do bpf_mark_chain_precision() from __clean_func_state() - check slot liveness information in check_stack_write_fixed_off()

I investigated both and the changes required are a bit tricky, hence go with a simple fix for the time being.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from be23266b4a08540aa43d8503a2ea10247c8daebe to 436fa689630b741a77ef8c4a6f426479affd5bac (excl.)
  • affected from be23266b4a08540aa43d8503a2ea10247c8daebe to 2f3536bff8823d3c5fdbbe15e17bfca696cc2b2e (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 7.1 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 7.1 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.7 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc2 to * (incl.)

References