CVE-2026-43009

bpf: Fix incorrect pruning due to atomic fetch precision tracking

CVE-2026-43009 is fixed in 15 products on 1 platform, first by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43009, released May 15, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: High.

High
CVSS
7.8
Important
Exploitation
None reported
No vendor assessment
CISA KEV
Not listed
Not in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
EPSS
0.0016
5th percentile

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix incorrect pruning due to atomic fetch precision tracking When backtrack_insn encounters a BPF_STX instruction with BPF_ATOMIC and BPF_FETCH, the src register (or r0 for BPF_CMPXCHG) also acts as a destination, thus receiving the old value from the memory location. The current backtracking logic does not account for this. It treats atomic fetch operations the same as regular stores where the src register is only an input. This leads the backtrack_insn to fail to propagate precision to the stack location, which is then not marked as precise! Later, the verifier's path pruning can incorrectly consider two states equivalent when they differ in terms of stack state. Meaning, two branches can be treated as equivalent and thus get pruned when they should not be seen as such. Fix it as follows: Extend the BPF_LDX handling in backtrack_insn to also cover atomic fetch operations via is_atomic_fetch_insn() helper. When the fetch dst register is being tracked for precision, clear it, and propagate precision over to the stack slot. For non-stack memory, the precision walk stops at the atomic instruction, same as regular BPF_LDX. This covers all fetch variants. Before: 0: (b7) r1 = 8 ; R1=8 1: (7b) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = r1 ; R1=8 R10=fp0 fp-8=8 2: (b7) r2 = 0 ; R2=0 3: (db) r2 = atomic64_fetch_add((u64 *)(r10 -8), r2) ; R2=8 R10=fp0 fp-8=mmmmmmmm 4: (bf) r3 = r10 ; R3=fp0 R10=fp0 5: (0f) r3 += r2 mark_precise: frame0: last_idx 5 first_idx 0 subseq_idx -1 mark_precise: frame0: regs=r2 stack= before 4: (bf) r3 = r10 mark_precise: frame0: regs=r2 stack= before 3: (db) r2 = atomic64_fetch_add((u64 *)(r10 -8), r2) mark_precise: frame0: regs=r2 stack= before 2: (b7) r2 = 0 6: R2=8 R3=fp8 6: (b7) r0 = 0 ; R0=0 7: (95) exit After: 0: (b7) r1 = 8 ; R1=8 1: (7b) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = r1 ; R1=8 R10=fp0 fp-8=8 2: (b7) r2 = 0 ; R2=0 3: (db) r2 = atomic64_fetch_add((u64 *)(r10 -8), r2) ; R2=8 R10=fp0 fp-8=mmmmmmmm 4: (bf) r3 = r10 ; R3=fp0 R10=fp0 5: (0f) r3 += r2 mark_precise: frame0: last_idx 5 first_idx 0 subseq_idx -1 mark_precise: frame0: regs=r2 stack= before 4: (bf) r3 = r10 mark_precise: frame0: regs=r2 stack= before 3: (db) r2 = atomic64_fetch_add((u64 *)(r10 -8), r2) mark_precise: frame0: regs= stack=-8 before 2: (b7) r2 = 0 mark_precise: frame0: regs= stack=-8 before 1: (7b) *(u64 *)(r10 -8) = r1 mark_precise: frame0: regs=r1 stack= before 0: (b7) r1 = 8 6: R2=8 R3=fp8 6: (b7) r0 = 0 ; R0=0 7: (95) exit

Where it's fixed

ProductFixed inFixReleased
Linux
kernel-64kb · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-64kb · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-azure · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-azure · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-default · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-default · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-default-base · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1.150700.17.33.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-default-base · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1.160000.2.15 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-docs · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-docs · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-kvmsmall · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7-RT_Update_16 · sles 15.7 1-150700.1.5.2 SUSE-SU-2026:2591-1 Jun 23, 2026
kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7_Update_15 · sles 15.7 1-150700.15.3.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7_Update_16 · sles 15.7 1-150700.15.3.2 SUSE-SU-2026:2482-1 Jun 22, 2026
kernel-obs-build · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-obs-qa · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-source · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-source · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-syms · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-syms · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
kernel-zfcpdump · sles 15.7 6.4.0-150700.53.55.1 SUSE-SU-2026:2238-1 Jun 30, 2026
kernel-zfcpdump · sles 16.0 6.12.0-160000.34.1 SUSE-SU-2026:22087-1 Jun 5, 2026
linux · Debian 13.5 (trixie) 6.12.115-2 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43009 May 15, 2026
linux · Debian 14 6.19.12-1 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43009 May 15, 2026

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