High · published September 17, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: Drop scalar id on sign-extending narrowing stack fills
When a spilled scalar is filled back with a sign-extending narrowing load
(BPF_MEMSX), check_stack_read_fixed_off() copies the spilled register
including its scalar id, but coerce_reg_to_size_sx() then sign-extends the
filled register's value. If the same slot is also filled with a plain
zero-extending load (BPF_MEM), both destination registers share the id yet
hold different values. A later 'if <zext-reg> == const' then refines the
sign-extended register through sync_linked_regs() to a value it does not
have at runtime (e.g. the verifier believes 0x80000000 while the register
is 0xffffffff80000000), which can be turned into an out-of-bounds access.
Drop the shared scalar id at the sign-extension site in check_mem_access()
when sign extension actually changes the value, mirroring the BPF_MOVSX
handling in check_alu_op() (no_sext = reg_umax < 2^(size*8-1)).