Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2024-49861 json

bpf: Fix helper writes to read-only maps

published 2y ago modified 3mo ago also EUVD-2024-43835

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Fix helper writes to read-only maps

Lonial found an issue that despite user- and BPF-side frozen BPF map (like in case of .rodata), it was still possible to write into it from a BPF program side through specific helpers having ARG_PTR_TO_{LONG,INT} as arguments.

In check_func_arg() when the argument is as mentioned, the meta->raw_mode is never set. Later, check_helper_mem_access(), under the case of PTR_TO_MAP_VALUE as register base type, it assumes BPF_READ for the subsequent call to check_map_access_type() and given the BPF map is read-only it succeeds.

The helpers really need to be annotated as ARG_PTR_TO_{LONG,INT} | MEM_UNINIT when results are written into them as opposed to read out of them. The latter indicates that it's okay to pass a pointer to uninitialized memory as the memory is written to anyway.

However, ARG_PTR_TO_{LONG,INT} is a special case of ARG_PTR_TO_FIXED_SIZE_MEM just with additional alignment requirement. So it is better to just get rid of the ARG_PTR_TO_{LONG,INT} special cases altogether and reuse the fixed size memory types. For this, add MEM_ALIGNED to additionally ensure alignment given these helpers write directly into the args via *<ptr> = val. The .arg*_size has been initialized reflecting the actual sizeof(*<ptr>).

MEM_ALIGNED can only be used in combination with MEM_FIXED_SIZE annotated argument types, since in !MEM_FIXED_SIZE cases the verifier does not know the buffer size a priori and therefore cannot blindly write *<ptr> = val.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.120, 6.6.54, 6.10.13, 6.11.2, 6.12
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.123-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.11.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-49861

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-54.56
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1023.25
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1024.26
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1019.23
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1022.22
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1025.30
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1006.8
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1019.23

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-49861

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6
  • kernel-core RHEL 9 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6

red hat advisories RHSA-2025:6966

  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.11.1
  • kernel-syms-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.11.1
  • kernel-source-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.11.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.11.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.11.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.11.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.11.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.11.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:03011-1SUSE-SU-2025:02997-1SUSE-SU-2025:02996-1SUSE-SU-2025:02969-1SUSE-SU-2025:02923-1SUSE-SU-2025:02846-1

  • kernel-source-longterm openSUSE Tumbleweed 6.12.11-1.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 6.11.8-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:14705-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14500-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.56.1-5

azure linux advisories AZL-50858

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2024-49861 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-49861 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: bpf: Fix helper writes to read-only maps

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) rv 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, perf 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, rtla 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, python3-perf 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, +7 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) kernel 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-64k 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-tools 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-modules 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-64k-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, +27 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) libperf 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-64k 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-64k-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, +14 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time for NFV (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-kvm 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-debug-kvm 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-570.12.1.el9_6, +6 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2025:6966
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.