# CVE-2024-49861: bpf: Fix helper writes to read-only maps

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-10-21 · Updated: 2026-08-05

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.2

## Description

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.

## 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.
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## 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/988e55abcf7fdb8fc9a76a7cf3f4e939a4d4fb3a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a2c8dc7e21803257e762b0bf067fd13e9c995da0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2ed98ee02d1e08afee88f54baec39ea78dc8a23c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1e75d25133158b525e0456876e9bcfd6b2993fd5
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/32556ce93bc45c730829083cb60f95a2728ea48b

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