In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix invalid prog->stats access when update_effective_progs fails Syzkaller triggers an invalid memory access issue following fault injection in update_effective_p…

Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Fix invalid prog->stats access when update_effective_progs fails

Syzkaller triggers an invalid memory access issue following fault injection in update_effective_progs. The issue can be described as follows:

__cgroup_bpf_detach update_effective_progs compute_effective_progs bpf_prog_array_alloc <-- fault inject purge_effective_progs /* change to dummy_bpf_prog */ array->items[index] = &dummy_bpf_prog.prog

---softirq start--- __do_softirq ... __cgroup_bpf_run_filter_skb __bpf_prog_run_save_cb bpf_prog_run stats = this_cpu_ptr(prog->stats) /* invalid memory access */ flags = u64_stats_update_begin_irqsave(&stats->syncp) ---softirq end---

static_branch_dec(&cgroup_bpf_enabled_key[atype])

The reason is that fault injection caused update_effective_progs to fail and then changed the original prog into dummy_bpf_prog.prog in purge_effective_progs. Then a softirq came, and accessing the members of dummy_bpf_prog.prog in the softirq triggers invalid mem access.

To fix it, skip updating stats when stats is NULL.

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Low · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 · updated 2026-09-18 · vex