CVE-2026-44778
Description
A flaw was found in Inspektor Gadget. An unprivileged container can trigger a denial of service in the privileged Inspektor Gadget process. This occurs when a custom gadget with an eBPF section attaches to a specially crafted ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) binary. The USDT (Userland Statically Defined Tracing) note parser fails to validate input, leading to out-of-bounds memory access and potential memory exhaustion, ultimately crashing the process.
Statement
Red Hat Product Security has determined that this vulnerability does not affect any currently supported Red Hat product. This assessment may evolve based on further analysis and discovery. For more information about this vulnerability and the products it affects, please see the linked references.
Mitigation
To mitigate this issue, avoid deploying custom Inspektor Gadget configurations that utilize User-level Statically Defined Tracing (USDT) probes. The vulnerability is only exploitable when a custom gadget with a SEC("usdt/...") eBPF section attaches to a crafted ELF binary. If custom USDT gadgets are essential, ensure that the environment where Inspektor Gadget operates is trusted and that only verified ELF binaries are processed.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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