High-severity vulnerability in Linux caused by a single faulty character
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-53111 | In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: test_run: Fix the null pointer dereference issue in bpf_lwt_xmit_push_encap The bpf_lwt_xmit_push_encap helper needs to access skb_dst(skb)->dev to calculate the needed headroom: err = skb_cow_head(skb, len + LL_RESERVED_SPACE(skb_dst(skb)->dev)); But skb->_skb_refdst may not be initialized when the skb is set up by bpf_prog_test_run_skb function. Executing bpf_lwt_push_ip_encap function in this scenario will trigger null pointer dereference, causing a kernel crash as Yinhao reported: [ 105.186365] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 [ 105.186382] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode [ 105.186388] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page [ 105.186393] PGD 121d3d067 P4D 121d3d067 PUD 106c83067 PMD 0 [ 105.186404] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI [ 105.186412] CPU: 3 PID: 3250 Comm: poc Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.19.0-rc5 #1 [ 105.186423] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 [ 105.186427] RIP: 0010:bpf_lwt_push_ip_encap+0x1eb/0x520 [ 105.186443] Code: 0f 84 de 01 00 00 0f b7 4a 04 66 85 c9 0f 85 47 01 00 00 31 c0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e c3 cc cc cc cc 48 8b 73 58 48 83 e6 fe 8b 36 0f b7 be ec 00 00 00 0f b7 b6 e6 00 00 00 01 fe 83 e6 f0 [ 105.186449] RSP: 0018:ffffbb0e0387bc50 EFLAGS: 00010246 [ 105.186455] RAX: 000000000000004e RBX: ffff94c74e036500 RCX: ffff94c74874da00 [ 105.186460] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff94c74e036500 [ 105.186463] RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 0000000000000002 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 105.186467] R10: ffffbb0e0387bd50 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffbb0e0387bc98 [ 105.186471] R13: 0000000000000014 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000002 [ 105.186484] FS: 00007f166aa4d680(0000) GS:ffff94c8b7780000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 105.186490] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 105.186494] CR2: 0000000000000000 CR3: 000000015eade001 CR4: 0000000000770ee0 [ 105.186499] PKRU: 55555554 [ 105.186502] Call Trace: [ 105.186507] [ 105.186513] bpf_lwt_xmit_push_encap+0x2b/0x40 [ 105.186522] bpf_prog_a75eaad51e517912+0x41/0x49 [ 105.186536] ? kvm_clock_get_cycles+0x18/0x30 [ 105.186547] ? ktime_get+0x3c/0xa0 [ 105.186554] bpf_test_run+0x195/0x320 [ 105.186563] ? bpf_test_run+0x10f/0x320 [ 105.186579] bpf_prog_test_run_skb+0x2f5/0x4f0 [ 105.186590] __sys_bpf+0x69c/0xa40 [ 105.186603] __x64_sys_bpf+0x1e/0x30 [ 105.186611] do_syscall_64+0x59/0x110 [ 105.186620] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0xe0 [ 105.186649] RIP: 0033:0x7f166a97455d Temporarily add the setting of skb->_skb_refdst before bpf_test_run to resolve the issue. NVD description · AI analysis pending | 5.5 | <1% |
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Full article232 words · extracted from arstechnica.com · click to collapse
When a verdict map is deleted from memory, catchall elements are deactivated and a chain’s reference counter is decremented. When errors occur the deletion can be reversed and the counter incremented. CVE-2026-53111 allows for that process to be altered. As a result, the exploit can decrement the variable an arbitrary number of times and then delete and free the chain when some objects still point to it.
“In this blog post, we have seen how one incorrect exclamation mark introduced a use-after-free vulnerability which can be exploited by an unprivileged user on Debian and Ubuntu to escalate privileges to root,” researchers from security firm Exodus Intelligence wrote Monday. “Although the exploit triggers the use-after-free vulnerability multiple times to leak the kernel base address, leak heap addresses, and hijack the control flow, the stability tests resulted in a stability of >99% on an idle system.”
The vulnerability was fixed in the kernel in February and subsequently back ported to major Linux distributions. Security firm FuzzingLabs demonstrated a proof of concept exploit in April. Exodus Intelligence, which discovered the bug, included its own PoC exploit in Monday’s post. It worked on Debian and Ubuntu.
CVE-2026-53111 is one of at least three potent elevation-of-privilege vulnerabilities to hit Linux in recent weeks. The vulnerabilities are serious, because, when chained to a separate exploit, they can be used to evade security defenses baked into the OS.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/a-single-errant-character-in-the-linux-kernel-allows-attacker-to-gain-root/