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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2026-63809 json

bpf: use kvfree() for replaced sysctl write buffer

published 2026-07-19 3 mo ago modified 2026-10-22 17 d ago also EUVD-2026-45475

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 4%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: use kvfree() for replaced sysctl write buffer

proc_sys_call_handler() allocates its temporary sysctl buffer with kvzalloc() and passes it to __cgroup_bpf_run_filter_sysctl(). Since kvzalloc() may fall back to vmalloc() for large allocations, freeing that buffer with kfree() is wrong and can corrupt memory.

Use kvfree() to safely handle both kmalloc and kvzalloc()/vmalloc allocations.

The bug was first flagged by an experimental analysis tool we are developing for kernel memory-management bugs while analyzing v6.13-rc1. The tool is still under development and is not yet publicly available. Manual inspection confirms that the bug is still present in v7.1-rc5.

Reproduced the bug based on v7.1-rc4 in a QEMU x86_64 guest booted with KASAN and CONFIG_FAILSLAB enabled. To exercise the replacement path, the test tree also included the accompanying fix for the stale ret == 1 check in __cgroup_bpf_run_filter_sysctl(). The reproducer confines failslab injections to the proc_sys_call_handler() range, uses stacktrace-depth=32, and injects fail-nth=1 while writing 8191 bytes to /proc/sys/kernel/domainname from a task in the target cgroup. Under that setup, fail-nth=1 triggered the fault:

BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffeb0200024d48 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 209 Comm: repro_proc_sys_ Not tainted 7.1.0-rc4-00686-g97625979a5d4 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:kfree+0x6e/0x510 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ? __cgroup_bpf_run_filter_sysctl+0x626/0xc30 __cgroup_bpf_run_filter_sysctl+0x74d/0xc30 ? __pfx___cgroup_bpf_run_filter_sysctl+0x10/0x10 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? __kvmalloc_node_noprof+0x345/0x870 ? proc_sys_call_handler+0x250/0x480 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f proc_sys_call_handler+0x3a2/0x480 ? __pfx_proc_sys_call_handler+0x10/0x10 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? selinux_file_permission+0x39f/0x500 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? lock_is_held_type+0x9e/0x120 vfs_write+0x98e/0x1000 ... </TASK>

With this fix applied on top of the same test setup, rerunning the reproducer with fail-nth=1 yields no corresponding Oops reports.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.260, 5.12, 5.15.211, 6.1.177, 6.6.144, 6.12.95, 6.18.38, 7.1.3, 7.2
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.177-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.95-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.1.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-63809

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-198.208
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-147.147
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1117.124
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1067.70
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1118.128
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1071.79

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-63809

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-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1.159998.21.42
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:24550-1SUSE-SU-2026:5091-1SUSE-SU-2026:3810-1SUSE-SU-2026:3790-1SUSE-SU-2026:23244-1SUSE-SU-2026:23241-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21555-1openSUSE-SU-2026:11339-1

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-2026-63809 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: bpf: use kvfree() for replaced sysctl write buffer

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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
23 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4% 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

Weakness
  • CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write
  • CWE-763 Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference
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.