CVE-2025-40143: bpf: dont report verifier bug for missing bpf_scc_visit on speculative path

Severity: unknown
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-11-12 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: dont report verifier bug for missing bpf_scc_visit on speculative path Syzbot generated a program that triggers a verifier_bug() call in maybe_exit_scc(). maybe_exit_scc() assumes that, when called for a state with insn_idx in some SCC, there should be an instance of struct bpf_scc_visit allocated for that SCC. Turns out the assumption does not hold for speculative execution paths. See example in the next patch. maybe_scc_exit() is called from update_branch_counts() for states that reach branch count of zero, meaning that path exploration for a particular path is finished. Path exploration can finish in one of three ways: a. Verification error is found. In this case, update_branch_counts() is called only for non-speculative paths. b. Top level BPF_EXIT is reached. Such instructions are never a part of an SCC, so compute_scc_callchain() in maybe_scc_exit() will return false, and maybe_scc_exit() will return early. c. A checkpoint is reached and matched. Checkpoints are created by is_state_visited(), which calls maybe_enter_scc(), which allocates bpf_scc_visit instances for checkpoints within SCCs. Hence, for non-speculative symbolic execution paths, the assumption still holds: if maybe_scc_exit() is called for a state within an SCC, bpf_scc_visit instance must exist. This patch removes the verifier_bug() call for speculative paths.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 6.17 — fixed in 6.18

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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