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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-21642 json

mptcp: sysctl: sched: avoid using current->nsproxy

published 2025-01-19 21 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-2591

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 16%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mptcp: sysctl: sched: avoid using current->nsproxy

Using the 'net' structure via 'current' is not recommended for different reasons.

First, if the goal is to use it to read or write per-netns data, this is inconsistent with how the "generic" sysctl entries are doing: directly by only using pointers set to the table entry, e.g. table->data. Linked to that, the per-netns data should always be obtained from the table linked to the netns it had been created for, which may not coincide with the reader's or writer's netns.

Another reason is that access to current->nsproxy->netns can oops if attempted when current->nsproxy had been dropped when the current task is exiting. This is what syzbot found, when using acct(2):

Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000005: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000028-0x000000000000002f] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 5924 Comm: syz-executor Not tainted 6.13.0-rc5-syzkaller-00004-gccb98ccef0e5 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 09/13/2024 RIP: 0010:proc_scheduler+0xc6/0x3c0 net/mptcp/ctrl.c:125 Code: 03 42 80 3c 38 00 0f 85 fe 02 00 00 4d 8b a4 24 08 09 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 49 8d 7c 24 28 48 89 fa 48 c1 ea 03 <80> 3c 02 00 0f 85 cc 02 00 00 4d 8b 7c 24 28 48 8d 84 24 c8 00 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc900034774e8 EFLAGS: 00010206

RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 1ffff9200068ee9e RCX: ffffc90003477620 RDX: 0000000000000005 RSI: ffffffff8b08f91e RDI: 0000000000000028 RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: ffffc90003477710 R09: 0000000000000040 R10: 0000000000000040 R11: 00000000726f7475 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: ffffc90003477620 R14: ffffc90003477710 R15: dffffc0000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b8700000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007fee3cd452d8 CR3: 000000007d116000 CR4: 00000000003526f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> proc_sys_call_handler+0x403/0x5d0 fs/proc/proc_sysctl.c:601 __kernel_write_iter+0x318/0xa80 fs/read_write.c:612 __kernel_write+0xf6/0x140 fs/read_write.c:632 do_acct_process+0xcb0/0x14a0 kernel/acct.c:539 acct_pin_kill+0x2d/0x100 kernel/acct.c:192 pin_kill+0x194/0x7c0 fs/fs_pin.c:44 mnt_pin_kill+0x61/0x1e0 fs/fs_pin.c:81 cleanup_mnt+0x3ac/0x450 fs/namespace.c:1366 task_work_run+0x14e/0x250 kernel/task_work.c:239 exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:43 [inline] do_exit+0xad8/0x2d70 kernel/exit.c:938 do_group_exit+0xd3/0x2a0 kernel/exit.c:1087 get_signal+0x2576/0x2610 kernel/signal.c:3017 arch_do_signal_or_restart+0x90/0x7e0 arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:337 exit_to_user_mode_loop kernel/entry/common.c:111 [inline] exit_to_user_mode_prepare include/linux/entry-common.h:329 [inline] __syscall_exit_to_user_mode_work kernel/entry/common.c:207 [inline] syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x150/0x2a0 kernel/entry/common.c:218 do_syscall_64+0xda/0x250 arch/x86/entry/common.c:89 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7fee3cb87a6a Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at 0x7fee3cb87a40. RSP: 002b:00007fffcccac688 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000037 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 00007fffcccac710 RCX: 00007fee3cb87a6a RDX: 0000000000000041 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 0000000000000003 R08: 00007fffcccac6ac R09: 00007fffcccacac7 R10: 00007fffcccac710 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 00007fee3cd49500 R13: 00007fffcccac6ac R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 00007fee3cd4b000 </TASK> Modules linked in: ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- RIP: 0010:proc_scheduler+0xc6/0x3c0 net/mptcp/ctrl.c:125 Code: 03 42 80 3c 38 00 0f 85 fe 02 00 00 4d 8b a4 24 08 09 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.6.72, 6.9, 6.12.10, 6.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21642

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-60.63
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1029.31
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1030.32
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1025.29
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1026.26
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1029.34
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1028.32

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21642

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2025-21642 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: mptcp: sysctl: sched: avoid using current->nsproxy

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
13 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.