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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.7

CVE-2025-21943 json

gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload

published 2025-04-01 19 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-9378

cvss
4.7
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:

gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload

Both new_device_store and delete_device_store touch module global resources (e.g. gpio_aggregator_lock). To prevent race conditions with module unload, a reference needs to be held.

Add try_module_get() in these handlers.

For new_device_store, this eliminates what appears to be the most dangerous scenario: if an id is allocated from gpio_aggregator_idr but platform_device_register has not yet been called or completed, a concurrent module unload could fail to unregister/delete the device, leaving behind a dangling platform device/GPIO forwarder. This can result in various issues. The following simple reproducer demonstrates these problems:

#!/bin/bash while :; do # note: whether 'gpiochip0 0' exists or not does not matter. echo 'gpiochip0 0' > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/gpio-aggregator/new_device done & while :; do modprobe gpio-aggregator modprobe -r gpio-aggregator done & wait

Starting with the following warning, several kinds of warnings will appear and the system may become unstable:

------------[ cut here ]------------ list_del corruption, ffff888103e2e980->next is LIST_POISON1 (dead000000000100) WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 1327 at lib/list_debug.c:56 __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 [...] RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 [...] Call Trace: <TASK> ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 ? __warn.cold+0x93/0xf2 ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 ? report_bug+0xe6/0x170 ? __irq_work_queue_local+0x39/0xe0 ? handle_bug+0x58/0x90 ? exc_invalid_op+0x13/0x60 ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20 ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 gpiod_remove_lookup_table+0x22/0x60 new_device_store+0x315/0x350 [gpio_aggregator] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x137/0x1f0 vfs_write+0x262/0x430 ksys_write+0x60/0xd0 do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x180 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [...] </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.235, 5.15.179, 6.1.131, 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7, 6.14
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.133-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.19-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21943

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-140.150
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-62.65
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1084.91
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1030.32
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1083.92
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1031.33
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1081.87
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1026.30

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21943

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

  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1
  • kernel-syms-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1
  • kernel-source-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1
  • kernel-source-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:01967-1SUSE-SU-2025:01964-1SUSE-SU-2025:01951-1SUSE-SU-2025:01919-1SUSE-SU-2025:01707-1SUSE-SU-2025:01614-1

  • kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.15.180.1-1
  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.85.1-2

azure linux advisories AZL-59748AZL-59912

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2025-21943 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload

  • 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 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 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
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.