7.8High

CVE-2025-40123

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.

What this means for your business

  • An attacker can use it only with access to the machine itself, with an ordinary user login, and without anyone at your company clicking anything.
  • FIRST's prediction model gives it a 0.2% chance of attack attempts being seen in the next 30 days, ranking above 4% of all known flaws.

What to do

  1. 1Ask your IT team or provider whether any of your systems use the affected product.
  2. 2If you do, follow the vendor's guidance. No patch reference has been published yet.

Not sure if your company is exposed?

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Scoring

CVSS
7.8 (v3.1)
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Assigned by
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Dates

Published
2025-11-12
Last modified
2026-09-14
Sources
NVD

References