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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-38502 json

bpf: Fix oob access in cgroup local storage

published 2025-08-16 14 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2025-25076

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 8%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: Fix oob access in cgroup local storage

Lonial reported that an out-of-bounds access in cgroup local storage can be crafted via tail calls. Given two programs each utilizing a cgroup local storage with a different value size, and one program doing a tail call into the other. The verifier will validate each of the indivial programs just fine. However, in the runtime context the bpf_cg_run_ctx holds an bpf_prog_array_item which contains the BPF program as well as any cgroup local storage flavor the program uses. Helpers such as bpf_get_local_storage() pick this up from the runtime context:

ctx = container_of(current->bpf_ctx, struct bpf_cg_run_ctx, run_ctx); storage = ctx->prog_item->cgroup_storage[stype];

if (stype == BPF_CGROUP_STORAGE_SHARED) ptr = &READ_ONCE(storage->buf)->data[0]; else ptr = this_cpu_ptr(storage->percpu_buf);

For the second program which was called from the originally attached one, this means bpf_get_local_storage() will pick up the former program's map, not its own. With mismatching sizes, this can result in an unintended out-of-bounds access.

To fix this issue, we need to extend bpf_map_owner with an array of storage_cookie[] to match on i) the exact maps from the original program if the second program was using bpf_get_local_storage(), or ii) allow the tail call combination if the second program was not using any of the cgroup local storage maps.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.192, 6.1.151, 6.6.105, 6.12.46, 6.16.1, 6.17
  • Siemens SIMATIC CN 4100 V5.0
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.153-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.48-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.16.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38502

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-163.173
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-106.106
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1097.104
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1050.53
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1097.106
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1052.55
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1093.99
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1048.53

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38502

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.112.1-1
  • kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.15.200.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-66359AZL-73473

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2025-38502 updated cvss 4.0

kernel: bpf: Fix oob access in cgroup local storage

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 8% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux
  • Siemens SIMATIC CN 4100

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.