Local privilege escalation via BPF register liveness misclassification
Published May 8, 2026 · Updated May 8, 2026
Privilege escalation in the Linux kernel 6.19 through 6.19.5 allows local users to execute code with kernel privileges via a crafted BPF program. The BPF verifier's compute_insn_live_regs() function fails to mark the destination register of an indirect gotox instruction as used, producing an incorrect register-liveness result. The attack requires local low-privileged access and the ability to invoke bpf() with BPF_PROG_LOAD and an instruction-array map; no user interaction is required.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in the Linux kernel 6.19 through 6.19.5 allows local users to execute code with kernel privileges via a crafted BPF program. The BPF verifier's compute_insn_live_regs() function fails to mark the destination register of an indirect gotox instruction as used, producing an incorrect register-liveness result. The attack requires local low-privileged access and the ability to invoke bpf() with BPF_PROG_LOAD and an instruction-array map; no user interaction is required.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-43321
- Published
- May 8, 2026
- Updated
- May 8, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux Kernel
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 8, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 8, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <7beae54111c34ca63357ef120e115889b915beb5
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <d1aab1ca576c90192ba961094d51b0be6355a4d6
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <df02c3ff3be4bf998812c8c8e79d10db1329d535
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
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Technologies
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Your stack
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