published September 25, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: Reject untrusted allocated-object pointers
When the final RCU read-side critical section ends, a local kptr is demoted
to PTR_UNTRUSTED but retains MEM_ALLOC. The pointer may be NULL or may refer
to an object whose lifetime is no longer protected.
type_is_ptr_alloc_obj() nevertheless recognizes any PTR_TO_BTF_ID with
MEM_ALLOC as a live allocated object. In particular, a refcount-only local
kptr never carries NON_OWN_REF, so it still passes the
bpf_refcount_acquire() argument check after RCU protection ends. The kfunc
can then dereference NULL or stale memory.
Make type_is_ptr_alloc_obj() reject PTR_UNTRUSTED pointers. Since
type_is_non_owning_ref() is based on the same predicate, graph kfunc
arguments obey the same live-object requirement. Fault-protected reads of
the demoted pointer remain valid: writes are already rejected, and read
fixups use bpf_may_fault_on_deref() rather than this predicate.
[ kkd: Rewrote commit log ]