CVE-2026-98589
Received Received - Intake

BPF Verifier Packet Pointer Mutation Flaw

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98589, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-10-18

Last updated on: 2026-10-18

Assigner: kernel.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Reject pkt arguments in mutating subprogs The verifier tracks changes in how PTR_TO_PACKET registers' bounds are modified across subprog boundaries. PTR_TO_PACKET registers are actually passed as PTR_TO_MEM, which is assumed valid for the entire call. This is not the case with packet memory, where a pskb_* call may invalidate its memory region. Reject BPF code that passes PTR_TO_PACKET pointers to subprogs that may mutate a packet. We cannot pass the pointer as a true PTR_TO_PACKET because we would also need to somehow pass the PTR_TO_PACKET_META or PTR_TO_PACKET_END to the subprog. Since we cannot avoid representing the pointer in the subprog as PTR_TO_MEM, only permit it if the subprog is guaranteed not to mutate the packet.

CVSS Scores

EPSS Scores

Probability:
Percentile:

Meta Information

Published
2026-10-18
Last Modified
2026-10-18
Generated
2026-10-18
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 3 associated CPEs
Vendor Product Version / Range
Linux Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2
Linux Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2
Linux Linux 0

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

CWE
CWE Icon
KEV
KEV Icon
CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN

Attack-Flow Graph

AI Quick Actions

Instant insights powered by AI
AI Quick Actions have not been generated yet.

Chat Assistant

Ask questions about this CVE
Hi! I’m here to help you understand CVE-2026-98589. Ask me anything about the vulnerability, its impact, or mitigation strategies.
0/70

EPSS Chart