CVE-2021-3490
Description
The eBPF ALU32 bounds tracking for bitwise ops (AND, OR and XOR) in the Linux kernel did not properly update 32-bit bounds, which could be turned into out of bounds reads and writes in the Linux kernel and therefore, arbitrary code execution. This issue was fixed via commit 049c4e13714e ("bpf: Fix alu32 const subreg bound tracking on bitwise operations") (v5.13-rc4) and backported to the stable kernels in v5.12.4, v5.11.21, and v5.10.37. The AND/OR issues were introduced by commit 3f50f132d840 ("bpf: Verifier, do explicit ALU32 bounds tracking") (5.7-rc1) and the XOR variant was introduced by 2921c90d4718 ("bpf:Fix a verifier failure with xor") ( 5.10-rc1).
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
Exploits
Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.
Metasploit modules
OS impact
SUSE Affected 1 release
| Version | Status | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| — | Affected | — |
Arch Fixed 1 release
| Version | Status | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| — | Fixed | 5.10.37-1 |
Debian Fixed 5 releases
| Version | Status | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| trixie | Fixed | 5.10.38-1 |
| sid | Fixed | 5.10.38-1 |
| forky | Fixed | 5.10.38-1 |
| bullseye | Fixed | 5.10.38-1 |
| bookworm | Fixed | 5.10.38-1 |
References
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.