CVE-2026-74256
HighCVSS 8.4Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk8th percentile - higher than 8% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's BPF sockmap mechanism, involving an integer overflow in the bpf_msg_pop_data() function. The addition of start + len is performed in 32-bit arithmetic, allowing the bounds check to be bypassed and leading to an out-of-bounds access on the scatterlist, resulting in a general protection fault and potential system crash.
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability can be exploited locally by a user with privileges to create BPF programs, leading to a kernel crash (denial of service) or potentially privilege escalation. Organizations using sockmap and BPF in production environments are at risk of service disruptions.
Recommendation
It is recommended to immediately apply the official Linux kernel patch that fixes CVE-2026-74256. Also update the system to a kernel version containing the fix and restrict BPF program creation privileges to trusted users only.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf, sockmap: fix integer overflow in bpf_msg_pop_data() bounds check start and len are u32, so u64 last = start + len; evaluates start + len in 32-bit and wraps before storing it in last. The bounds check if (start >= offset + l || last > msg->sg.size) return -EINVAL; can then be passed with an out-of-range start/len, after which the pop loop runs off the end of the scatterlist and sk_msg_shift_left() calls put_page() on the empty msg->sg.end slot: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000001: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN PTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000008-0x000000000000000f] RIP: 0010:sk_msg_shift_left net/core/filter.c:2957 [inline] RIP: 0010:____bpf_msg_pop_data net/core/filter.c:3103 [inline] RIP: 0010:bpf_msg_pop_data+0x753/0x1a10 net/core/filter.c:2984 Call Trace: <TASK> bpf_prog_4cc92c278f4d5d56+0x1b1/0x1e8 bpf_prog_run_pin_on_cpu+0x107/0x320 include/linux/filter.h:746 sk_psock_msg_verdict+0x357/0x7f0 net/core/skmsg.c:934 tcp_bpf_send_verdict net/ipv4/tcp_bpf.c:420 [inline] tcp_bpf_sendmsg+0x766/0x1ae0 net/ipv4/tcp_bpf.c:583 __sock_sendmsg+0x153/0x1c0 net/socket.c:802 __sys_sendto+0x326/0x430 net/socket.c:2265 __x64_sys_sendto+0xe3/0x100 net/socket.c:2268 do_syscall_64+0x14c/0x480 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f </TASK> Widen the addition with a (u64) cast so the bound is evaluated in 64-bit and a len near U32_MAX no longer wraps below msg->sg.size. While here, change pop from int to u32. It counts bytes against the unsigned scatterlist lengths and can never be negative, so the signed type only invites sign-confusion in the pop loop.