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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-21933 json

arm: pgtable: fix NULL pointer dereference issue

published 2025-04-01 19 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-9388

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 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

arm: pgtable: fix NULL pointer dereference issue

When update_mmu_cache_range() is called by update_mmu_cache(), the vmf parameter is NULL, which will cause a NULL pointer dereference issue in adjust_pte():

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000030 when read Hardware name: Atmel AT91SAM9 PC is at update_mmu_cache_range+0x1e0/0x278 LR is at pte_offset_map_rw_nolock+0x18/0x2c Call trace: update_mmu_cache_range from remove_migration_pte+0x29c/0x2ec remove_migration_pte from rmap_walk_file+0xcc/0x130 rmap_walk_file from remove_migration_ptes+0x90/0xa4 remove_migration_ptes from migrate_pages_batch+0x6d4/0x858 migrate_pages_batch from migrate_pages+0x188/0x488 migrate_pages from compact_zone+0x56c/0x954 compact_zone from compact_node+0x90/0xf0 compact_node from kcompactd+0x1d4/0x204 kcompactd from kthread+0x120/0x12c kthread from ret_from_fork+0x14/0x38 Exception stack(0xc0d8bfb0 to 0xc0d8bff8)

To fix it, do not rely on whether 'ptl' is equal to decide whether to hold the pte lock, but decide it by whether CONFIG_SPLIT_PTE_PTLOCKS is enabled. In addition, if two vmas map to the same PTE page, there is no need to hold the pte lock again, otherwise a deadlock will occur. Just add the need_lock parameter to let adjust_pte() know this information.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.13.7, 6.14

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-2025-21933 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: arm: pgtable: fix NULL pointer dereference issue

  • 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 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% 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.