published November 12, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: dont report verifier bug for missing bpf_scc_visit on speculative path
Syzbot generated a program that triggers a verifier_bug() call in
maybe_exit_scc(). maybe_exit_scc() assumes that, when called for a
state with insn_idx in some SCC, there should be an instance of struct
bpf_scc_visit allocated for that SCC. Turns out the assumption does
not hold for speculative execution paths. See example in the next
patch.
maybe_scc_exit() is called from update_branch_counts() for states that
reach branch count of zero, meaning that path exploration for a
particular path is finished. Path exploration can finish in one of
three ways:
a. Verification error is found. In this case, update_branch_counts()
is called only for non-speculative paths.
b. Top level BPF_EXIT is reached. Such instructions are never a part of
an SCC, so compute_scc_callchain() in maybe_scc_exit() will return
false, and maybe_scc_exit() will return early.
c. A checkpoint is reached and matched. Checkpoints are created by
is_state_visited(), which calls maybe_enter_scc(), which allocates
bpf_scc_visit instances for checkpoints within SCCs.
Hence, for non-speculative symbolic execution paths, the assumption
still holds: if maybe_scc_exit() is called for a state within an SCC,
bpf_scc_visit instance must exist.
This patch removes the verifier_bug() call for speculative paths.