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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2025-21988 in the critical feed json

fs/netfs/read_collect: add to next->prev_donated

published 2025-04-02 19 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2025-9541

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

fs/netfs/read_collect: add to next->prev_donated

If multiple subrequests donate data to the same "next" request (depending on the subrequest completion order), each of them would overwrite the `prev_donated` field, causing data corruption and a BUG() crash ("Can't donate prior to front").

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.20, 6.13.8, 6.14
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.20-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21988

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-2025-21988 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: fs/netfs/read_collect: add to next->prev_donated

  • 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

Exploit prediction

0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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.