CVE-2026-74314

bpf: Cancel special fields on map value recycle

HIGH
7.8
CVSS Score
Published: August 15, 2026 at 05:58 AM UTC
Updated: October 16, 2026 at 07:17 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
HIGH7.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Cancel special fields on map value recycle Map update and delete paths currently call bpf_obj_free_fields() when a value is being replaced or recycled. That makes field destruction depend on the context of the update/delete operation. For tracing programs this can include NMI context, where referenced kptr destructors, uptr unpinning, and graph root destruction are not generally safe. Introduce bpf_obj_cancel_fields() for the reusable-value path. It only performs NMI-safe cleanup for timer, workqueue, and task_work fields. Fields that need full destruction are left attached to the recycled value and are destroyed by the final cleanup path instead. Switch array and hashtab update/delete/recycle paths to this cancel helper. Keep bpf_obj_free_fields() for final map destruction and for bpf_mem_alloc destructors. Preallocated hashtabs do not have allocator destructors, so teardown continues to walk the normal and extra elements and fully destroy their fields. This deliberately relaxes the eager-free semantics of map update/delete for special fields. Programs that relied on a recycled map slot becoming empty immediately after update/delete were relying on behavior that cannot be implemented safely from every BPF execution context without offloading arbitrary destructors. There is a chance this change breaks programs making assumptions regarding the eager freeing of fields. If so, we can relax semantics to cancellation only when irqs_disabled() is true in the future. However, theoretically, map values that get reused eagerly already have weaker guarantees as parallel users can recreate freed fields before the new element becomes visible again.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

14a324f6a67ef6a53e04362a70160a47eb8afffa5.18.185.19f0462d38589422bc9e27fd3c6343dfeb6b3db2f9
Vendor states this is fixed in 9ea734e2cc0143d7429ab7dc0b20c85e5836183c (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in a3a81d247651218e47153f2d2afd7aee236726fd (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.19 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.1.5 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.2 (unaffected)

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.8HIGHLinux
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusRECEIVED

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