CVE-2021-3490

HIGH

Linux eBPF ALU32 32-bit Invalid Bounds Tracking LPE

Title source: metasploit

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).

Exploits (5)

nomisec WORKING POC 312 stars
by chompie1337 · poc
https://github.com/chompie1337/Linux_LPE_eBPF_CVE-2021-3490
nomisec WORKING POC 2 stars
by pivik271 · poc
https://github.com/pivik271/CVE-2021-3490
nomisec WORKING POC
by prabeershakya · poc
https://github.com/prabeershakya/CVE-2021-3490-POC
nomisec WRITEUP
by sandesh9978 · poc
https://github.com/sandesh9978/cve-2021-3490-ebpf-analysis
metasploit WORKING POC GREAT
by Manfred Paul, chompie1337, Grant Willcox · rubypoc
https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/local/cve_2021_3490_ebpf_alu32_bounds_check_lpe.rb

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0376
EPSS Percentile 88.1%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-125 CWE-20 CWE-787
Status published
Products (5)
canonical/ubuntu_linux 20.04
canonical/ubuntu_linux 20.10
canonical/ubuntu_linux 21.04
linux/linux_kernel 5.13 (4 CPE variants)
linux/linux_kernel 5.10 - 5.10.37
Published Jun 04, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026