bpf, arm64: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf, arm64: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing struct bpf_plt contains a u64 target field. Currently, the BPF JIT allocator requests an alignment of 4 bytes (sizeof(u32)) for the JIT buffer. Because the base address of the JIT buffer can be 4-byte aligned (e.g., ending in 0x4 or 0xc), the relative padding logic in build_plt() fails to ensure that target lands on an 8-byte boundary. This leads to two issues: 1. UBSAN reports misaligned-access warnings when dereferencing the structure. 2. More critically, target is updated concurrently via WRITE_ONCE() in bpf_arch_text_poke() while the JIT'd code executes ldr. On arm64, 64-bit loads/stores are only guaranteed to be single-copy atomic if they are 64-bit aligned. A misaligned target risks a torn read, causing the JIT to jump to a corrupted address. Fix this by increasing the allocation alignment requirement to 8 bytes (sizeof(u64)) in bpf_jit_binary_pack_alloc(). This anchors the base of the JIT buffer to an 8-byte boundary, allowing the relative padding math in build_plt() to correctly align the target field.
02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE
Affected packages
03 / CONNECTIONS
Connected vulnerabilities
04 / EVIDENCE
Source records
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf, arm64: Force 8-byte alignment for JIT buffer to prevent atomic tearing struct bpf_plt contains a u64 target field. Currently, the BPF JIT allocator requests an alignment of 4 bytes (sizeof(u32)) for the JIT buffer. Because the base address of the JIT buffer can be 4-byte aligned (e.g., ending in 0x4 or 0xc), the relative padding logic in build_plt() fails to ensure that target lands on an 8-byte boundary. This leads to two issues: 1. UBSAN reports misaligned-access warnings when dereferencing the structure. 2. More critically, target is updated concurrently via WRITE_ONCE() in bpf_arch_text_poke() while the JIT'd code executes ldr. On arm64, 64-bit loads/stores are only guaranteed to be single-copy atomic if they are 64-bit aligned. A misaligned target risks a torn read, causing the JIT to jump to a corrupted address. Fix this by increasing the allocation alignment requirement to 8 bytes (sizeof(u64)) in bpf_jit_binary_pack_alloc(). This anchors the base of the JIT buffer to an 8-byte boundary, allowing the relative padding math in build_plt() to correctly align the target field.
05 / REFERENCES
Further evidence
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/519b1ad91de5bf7a496f2b858e9212db6328e1de
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/66959ed481a474eaae278c7f6860a2a9b188a4d6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/80ad264da02cc4aee718e799c2b79f0f834673dc
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ef06fd16d48704eac868441d98d4ef083d8f3d07
- https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/23xxx/CVE-2026-23383.json
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23383