CVE-2026-98800 bpf: Wait for an RCU tasks grace period before freeing trampoline progs
A use-after-free in the Linux kernel BPF trampoline allows local attackers with high privileges to execute arbitrary code or escalate privileges.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98800?
CVE-2026-98800 is an use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: Wait for an RCU tasks grace period before freeing trampoline progs
When a prog is detached from a trampoline, it is freed after an RCU grace period, or an RCU tasks trace one if it is sleepable. This covers the tasks that are running the prog, since the prog's enter helper takes the matching read lock before the prog is called. On a preemptible kernel, it doesn't cover a task that was preempted in the trampoline just before the enter helper. That task holds no lock yet, and it calls the prog after it was freed:
BUG: KASAN: vmalloc-out-of-bounds in __bpf_prog_enter_recur+0x3a5/0x3f0 Read of size 8 at addr ffffc90000055040 by task candidate/110 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 110 Comm: candidate Not tainted 7.3.0-rc2-00014-g15071f2a1263-dirty #2 PREEMPT(full) Call Trace: <TASK> __bpf_prog_enter_recur+0x3a5/0x3f0 bpf_trampoline_6442509193+0x37/0xf1 __x64_sys_futex+0x9/0x410 do_syscall_64+0xb0/0x530 ...
Wait for an RCU tasks grace period before the existing one when freeing a prog that was linked to a trampoline. An RCU tasks grace period only ends once the tasks that were preempted have run again, and bpf_tramp_image_put() already relies on it to free the image. It doesn't wait for tasks that sleep in the trampoline, the next commit takes care of those.
Only progs that were linked to a trampoline can be called this way, so bpf_trampoline_add_prog() marks them and other progs are still freed as before.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98800?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98800?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2026-98800 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98800 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-108831, BELL-CVE-2026-98800, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98800, GHSA-hw45-3jc9-w8mr, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98800.