CVE-2022-49961

HIGH
MEDIUM Priority: 0.02 BB Relevance: 39/100
Published: 2025-06-18 Modified: 2026-10-30 First seen: 2026-10-30 Status: active

Attack Surface

Low Complexity No Interaction Conf. Impact

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV: Local
AC: Low
PR: Low
UI: None
S: Unchanged
C: High
I: None
A: High

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Do mark_chain_precision for ARG_CONST_ALLOC_SIZE_OR_ZERO Precision markers need to be propagated whenever we have an ARG_CONST_* style argument, as the verifier cannot consider imprecise scalars to be equivalent for the purposes of states_equal check when such arguments refine the return value (in this case, set mem_size for PTR_TO_MEM). The resultant mem_size for the R0 is derived from the constant value, and if the verifier incorrectly prunes states considering them equivalent where such arguments exist (by seeing that both registers have reg->precise as false in regsafe), we can end up with invalid programs passing the verifier which can do access beyond what should have been the correct mem_size in that explored state. To show a concrete example of the problem: 0000000000000000 <prog>: 0: r2 = *(u32 *)(r1 + 80) 1: r1 = *(u32 *)(r1 + 76) 2: r3 = r1 3: r3 += 4 4: if r3 > r2 goto +18 <LBB5_5> 5: w2 = 0 6: *(u32 *)(r1 + 0) = r2 7: r1 = *(u32 *)(r1 + 0) 8: r2 = 1 9: if w1 == 0 goto +1 <LBB5_3> 10: r2 = -1 0000000000000058 <LBB5_3>: 11: r1 = 0 ll 13: r3 = 0 14: call bpf_ringbuf_reserve 15: if r0 == 0 goto +7 <LBB5_5> 16: r1 = r0 17: r1 += 16777215 18: w2 = 0 19: *(u8 *)(r1 + 0) = r2 20: r1 = r0 21: r2 = 0 22: call bpf_ringbuf_submit 00000000000000b8 <LBB5_5>: 23: w0 = 0 24: exit For the first case, the single line execution's exploration will prune the search at insn 14 for the branch insn 9's second leg as it will be verified first using r2 = -1 (UINT_MAX), while as w1 at insn 9 will always be 0 so at runtime we don't get error for being greater than UINT_MAX/4 from bpf_ringbuf_reserve. The verifier during regsafe just sees reg->precise as false for both r2 registers in both states, hence considers them equal for purposes of states_equal. If we propagated precise markers using the backtracking support, we would use the precise marking to then ensure that old r2 (UINT_MAX) was within the new r2 (1) and this would never be true, so the verification would rightfully fail. The end result is that the out of bounds access at instruction 19 would be permitted without this fix. Note that reg->precise is always set to true when user does not have CAP_BPF (or when subprog count is greater than 1 (i.e. use of any static or global functions)), hence this is only a problem when precision marks need to be explicitly propagated (i.e. privileged users with CAP_BPF). A simplified test case has been included in the next patch to prevent future regressions.

Weakness Classification (1)

Affected Software (9)

VendorProductVersion
Linux Linux 457f44363a8894135c85b7a9afd2bd8196db24ab < 65efb481eb4572fce0f20aa6c13e880816b81579
Linux Linux 457f44363a8894135c85b7a9afd2bd8196db24ab < 987b4c465ba28c662ca857be6c20fd2d96bc55f0
Linux Linux 457f44363a8894135c85b7a9afd2bd8196db24ab < 2459615a8d7f44ac81f0965bc094e55ccb254717
Linux Linux 457f44363a8894135c85b7a9afd2bd8196db24ab < 2fc31465c5373b5ca4edf2e5238558cb62902311
Linux Linux 5.8
linux linux_kernel 5.8 – 5.19.8
linux linux_kernel 6.0
linux linux_kernel 6.0
linux linux_kernel 6.0

Bug Bounty Relevance

39 / 100
✓ Low complexity
✓ No user interaction

CVSS Score

7.1 / 10.0 v3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

EPSS — Exploitation Probability

0.28%
Raw Score 0.002760
Percentile 20.1%
Date 2026-10-30

EPSS Trend

2026-10-30
0.00276
2026-10-29
0.00276

Intelligence Sources

mitre ref →
nvd ref →