7.8

CVE-2023-52920: bpf: support non-r10 register spill/fill to/from stack in precision tracking

Modified
AliasesUBUNTU-CVE-2023-52920DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52920
Published 05-11-2024Last modified 15-10-2026

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2023-52920 is a high (CVSS 7.8) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16.9% of scored vulnerabilities.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 7.8, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
7.8/10
010
High · v3.1 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
0.25%
0%100%
Low · 0.00 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedNot listed by any tracked catalog.
RansomwareNot flaggedNo ransomware use recorded.
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 11 · Related 11

Timeline

  1. 05-11-2024
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 15-10-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: support non-r10 register spill/fill to/from stack in precision tracking Use instruction (jump) history to record instructions that performed register spill/fill to/from stack, regardless if this was done through read-only r10 register, or any other register after copying r10 into it *and* potentially adjusting offset. To make this work reliably, we push extra per-instruction flags into instruction history, encoding stack slot index (spi) and stack frame number in extra 10 bit flags we take away from prev_idx in instruction history. We don't touch idx field for maximum performance, as it's checked most frequently during backtracking. This change removes basically the last remaining practical limitation of precision backtracking logic in BPF verifier. It fixes known deficiencies, but also opens up new opportunities to reduce number of verified states, explored in the subsequent patches. There are only three differences in selftests' BPF object files according to veristat, all in the positive direction (less states). File Program Insns (A) Insns (B) Insns (DIFF) States (A) States (B) States (DIFF) -------------------------------------- ------------- --------- --------- ------------- ---------- ---------- ------------- test_cls_redirect_dynptr.bpf.linked3.o cls_redirect 2987 2864 -123 (-4.12%) 240 231 -9 (-3.75%) xdp_synproxy_kern.bpf.linked3.o syncookie_tc 82848 82661 -187 (-0.23%) 5107 5073 -34 (-0.67%) xdp_synproxy_kern.bpf.linked3.o syncookie_xdp 85116 84964 -152 (-0.18%) 5162 5130 -32 (-0.62%) Note, I avoided renaming jmp_history to more generic insn_hist to minimize number of lines changed and potential merge conflicts between bpf and bpf-next trees. Notice also cur_hist_entry pointer reset to NULL at the beginning of instruction verification loop. This pointer avoids the problem of relying on last jump history entry's insn_idx to determine whether we already have entry for current instruction or not. It can happen that we added jump history entry because current instruction is_jmp_point(), but also we need to add instruction flags for stack access. In this case, we don't want to entries, so we need to reuse last added entry, if it is present. Relying on insn_idx comparison has the same ambiguity problem as the one that was fixed recently in [0], so we avoid that. [0] https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/patch/20231110002638.4168352-3-andrii@kernel.org/

CVSS metrics

5 scores · 4 sources · 2 versions

EPSS trend

Probability

0.25%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

17%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

No change 0.00 pp

From 0.25% on 04-10-2026

04-10-202603-11-2026

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEV

Not in the CISA KEV catalog.

ENISA CNW

Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.

CIRCL

Not in the CIRCL catalog.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Version check

Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.

Ubuntu113 products
  • linuxAll versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-awsAll versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
Linux2 products
  • linux≥ b5dc0163d8fd78e64a7e21f309cf932fda34353e, < ecc2aeeaa08a355d84d3ca9c3d2512399a194f29 | ≥ b5dc0163d8fd78e64a7e21f309cf932fda34353e, < 199f0452873741fa4b8d4d88958e929030b2f92b | ≥ b5dc0163d8fd78e64a7e21f309cf932fda34353e, < e4da60feca4d35e1a9b03dc0affa3354f9ff45e4 | ≥ b5dc0163d8fd78e64a7e21f309cf932fda34353e, < 41f6f64e6999a837048b1bd13a2f8742964eca6b | 5.3
  • linux_kernel< 6.8
Debian1 product
  • linuxAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 6.8.9-1

3 vendors · 116 products

References

9 links