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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-21709 json

kernel: be more careful about dup_mmap() failures and uprobe registering

published 2025-02-27 20 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2025-5238

cvss
7.8
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 10%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

kernel: be more careful about dup_mmap() failures and uprobe registering

If a memory allocation fails during dup_mmap(), the maple tree can be left in an unsafe state for other iterators besides the exit path. All the locks are dropped before the exit_mmap() call (in mm/mmap.c), but the incomplete mm_struct can be reached through (at least) the rmap finding the vmas which have a pointer back to the mm_struct.

Up to this point, there have been no issues with being able to find an mm_struct that was only partially initialised. Syzbot was able to make the incomplete mm_struct fail with recent forking changes, so it has been proven unsafe to use the mm_struct that hasn't been initialised, as referenced in the link below.

Although 8ac662f5da19f ("fork: avoid inappropriate uprobe access to invalid mm") fixed the uprobe access, it does not completely remove the race.

This patch sets the MMF_OOM_SKIP to avoid the iteration of the vmas on the oom side (even though this is extremely unlikely to be selected as an oom victim in the race window), and sets MMF_UNSTABLE to avoid other potential users from using a partially initialised mm_struct.

When registering vmas for uprobe, skip the vmas in an mm that is marked unstable. Modifying a vma in an unstable mm may cause issues if the mm isn't fully initialised.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.83, 6.13.2, 6.14
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.16.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21709

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1059.67
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.62
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1063.71
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.50
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.65

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21709

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-2025-21709 updated cvss 7.1

kernel: kernel: be more careful about dup_mmap() failures and uprobe registering

  • 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
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.