Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-40123 json

bpf: Enforce expected_attach_type for tailcall compatibility

published 2025-11-12 11 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2025-124960

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 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: Enforce expected_attach_type for tailcall compatibility

Yinhao et al. recently reported:

Our fuzzer tool discovered an uninitialized pointer issue in the bpf_prog_test_run_xdp() function within the Linux kernel's BPF subsystem. This leads to a NULL pointer dereference when a BPF program attempts to deference the txq member of struct xdp_buff object.

The test initializes two programs of BPF_PROG_TYPE_XDP: progA acts as the entry point for bpf_prog_test_run_xdp() and its expected_attach_type can neither be of be BPF_XDP_DEVMAP nor BPF_XDP_CPUMAP. progA calls into a slot of a tailcall map it owns. progB's expected_attach_type must be BPF_XDP_DEVMAP to pass xdp_is_valid_access() validation. The program returns struct xdp_md's egress_ifindex, and the latter is only allowed to be accessed under mentioned expected_attach_type. progB is then inserted into the tailcall which progA calls.

The underlying issue goes beyond XDP though. Another example are programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_SOCK_ADDR. sock_addr_is_valid_access() as well as sock_addr_func_proto() have different logic depending on the programs' expected_attach_type. Similarly, a program attached to BPF_CGROUP_INET4_GETPEERNAME should not be allowed doing a tailcall into a program which calls bpf_bind() out of BPF which is only enabled for BPF_CGROUP_INET4_CONNECT.

In short, specifying expected_attach_type allows to open up additional functionality or restrictions beyond what the basic bpf_prog_type enables. The use of tailcalls must not violate these constraints. Fix it by enforcing expected_attach_type in __bpf_prog_map_compatible().

Note that we only enforce this for tailcall maps, but not for BPF devmaps or cpumaps: There, the programs are invoked through dev_map_bpf_prog_run*() and cpu_map_bpf_prog_run*() which set up a new environment / context and therefore these situations are not prone to this issue.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.270, 5.15.221, 6.1.156, 6.6.112, 6.12.53, 6.17.3, 6.18
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.158-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.57-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.17.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40123

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-202.212
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-106.106
  • linux Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-14.14
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1119.126
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1050.53
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1007.7
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1120.130
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1052.55

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40123

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-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-40.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-40.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1.21.16
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20845-1SUSE-SU-2026:20876-1SUSE-SU-2026:20477-1SUSE-SU-2026:20498-1SUSE-SU-2026:20207-1SUSE-SU-2026:20220-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20145-1

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-2025-40123 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: bpf: Enforce expected_attach_type for tailcall compatibility

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more 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: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 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

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% 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

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.