CVE-2021-29154
kernel: Local privilege escalation due to incorrect BPF JIT branch displacement computation
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · April 8, 2021
Updated · June 28, 2026
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernels eBPF implementation. By default, accessing the eBPF verifier is only accessible to privileged users with CAP_SYS_ADMIN. A local user with the ability to insert eBPF instructions can abuse a flaw in eBPF to corrupt memory. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.
Statement
This flaw is rated as having Moderate impact as eBPF requires a privileged user on Red Hat Enterprise Linux to correctly load eBPF instructions that can be exploited.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
This issue does not affect most systems by default. An administrator would need to have enabled the BPF JIT to be affected.
It can be disabled immediately with the command:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_enable
Or it can be disabled for all subsequent boots of the system by setting a value in /etc/sysctl.d/44-bpf-jit-disable
start file
net.core.bpf_jit_enable=0
end file
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 7CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE-119 · Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer