CVE-2017-16996 — kernel/bpf/verifier

kernel/bpf/verifier.c in the Linux kernel through 4.14.8 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact by leveraging register truncation mishandling.

01What is this vulnerability?

kernel/bpf/verifier.c in the Linux kernel through 4.14.8 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact by leveraging register truncation mishandling.

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2017-12-27T17:08:17.750
• Last modified: 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033

09References

• git.kernel.org — http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=0c17d1…
• openwall.com — http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/12/21/2
• www.securityfocus.com — http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102267
• bugs.chromium.org — https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1454
• github.com — https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/0c17d1d2c61936401f4702e1846e2c19b200f95…
• git.kernel.org — http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=0c17d1…
• openwall.com — http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/12/21/2
• www.securityfocus.com — http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102267
• bugs.chromium.org — https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1454
• github.com — https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/0c17d1d2c61936401f4702e1846e2c19b200f95…