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UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2026-53036

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf, arm64: Fix off-by-one in check_imm signed range check check_imm(bits, imm) is used in the arm64 BPF JIT to verify that a branch displacement (in arm64 instruction units) fits into…

HIGH 7.8EPSS 0.14%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.14%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf, arm64: Fix off-by-one in check_imm signed range check check_imm(bits, imm) is used in the arm64 BPF JIT to verify that a branch displacement (in arm64 instruction units) fits into the signed N-bit immediate field of a B, B.cond or CBZ/CBNZ encoding before it is handed to the encoder. The macro currently tests for (imm > 0 && imm >> bits) || (imm < 0 && ~imm >> bits) which admits values in [-2^N, 2^N) — effectively a signed (N+1)-bit range. A signed N-bit field only holds [-2^(N-1), 2^(N-1)), so the check admits one extra bit of range on each side. In particular, for check_imm19(), values in [2^18, 2^19) slip past the check but do not fit into the 19-bit signed imm19 field of B.cond. aarch64_insn_encode_immediate() then masks the raw value into the 19-bit field, setting bit 18 (the sign bit) and flipping a forward branch into a backward one. Same class of issue exists for check_imm26() and the B/BL encoding. Shift by (bits - 1) instead of bits so the actual signed N-bit range is enforced.

CVSS 3.1
7.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.14% probability · 4th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-193
Affected
linux/linux kernel
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.