CVE-2026-72426: bpf: Preserve pointer spill metadata during half-slot cleanup

Severity: high (CVSS 8.4 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-15 · updated 2026-08-17

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Preserve pointer spill metadata during half-slot cleanup __clean_func_state() cleans dead stack slots in 4-byte halves. When the high half of a STACK_SPILL slot is dead and the low half remains live, cleanup converts the live low half to STACK_MISC or STACK_ZERO and clears the saved spilled_ptr metadata. That conversion is safe only for scalar spills. For a pointer spill, this metadata clear lets a later 32-bit fill from the still-live half avoid the normal non-scalar register-fill check and be treated as an ordinary scalar stack read. Leave non-scalar spill slots intact in this half-live shape. This is conservative for pruning and preserves the existing check_stack_read_fixed_off() rejection path for partial fills from pointer spills.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 7.1 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-72426 or the next vulnerability affects your stack