CVE-2026-74314
HIGHCVE-2026-74314 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) vulnerability in Kernel. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-74314 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
bpf: Cancel special fields on map value recycle
Real-World Exposure
KernelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Linux packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: Cancel special fields on map value recycle
Map update and delete paths currently call bpf_obj_free_fields() when a value is being replaced or recycled. That makes field destruction depend on the context of the update/delete operation. For tracing programs this can include NMI context, where referenced kptr destructors, uptr unpinning, and graph root destruction are not generally safe.
Introduce bpf_obj_cancel_fields() for the reusable-value path. It only performs NMI-safe cleanup for timer, workqueue, and task_work fields. Fields that need full destruction are left attached to the recycled value and are destroyed by the final cleanup path instead.
Switch array and hashtab update/delete/recycle paths to this cancel helper. Keep bpf_obj_free_fields() for final map destruction and for bpf_mem_alloc destructors. Preallocated hashtabs do not have allocator destructors, so teardown continues to walk the normal and extra elements and fully destroy their fields.
This deliberately relaxes the eager-free semantics of map update/delete for special fields. Programs that relied on a recycled map slot becoming empty immediately after update/delete were relying on behavior that cannot be implemented safely from every BPF execution context without offloading arbitrary destructors.
There is a chance this change breaks programs making assumptions regarding the eager freeing of fields. If so, we can relax semantics to cancellation only when irqs_disabled() is true in the future. However, theoretically, map values that get reused eagerly already have weaker guarantees as parallel users can recreate freed fields before the new element becomes visible again.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 5.19.0&&< 7.1.5 | 7.1.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update Kernel to 7.1.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-74314 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-74314 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-74314. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-74314 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-74314 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.