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Fencer Vulns
high 7.3

CVE-2025-22094 json

powerpc/perf: Fix ref-counting on the PMU 'vpa_pmu'

published 2025-04-16 18 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2025-11209

cvss
7.3
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 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

powerpc/perf: Fix ref-counting on the PMU 'vpa_pmu'

Commit 176cda0619b6 ("powerpc/perf: Add perf interface to expose vpa counters") introduced 'vpa_pmu' to expose Book3s-HV nested APIv2 provided L1<->L2 context switch latency counters to L1 user-space via perf-events. However the newly introduced PMU named 'vpa_pmu' doesn't assign ownership of the PMU to the module 'vpa_pmu'. Consequently the module 'vpa_pmu' can be unloaded while one of the perf-events are still active, which can lead to kernel oops and panic of the form below on a Pseries-LPAR:

BUG: Kernel NULL pointer dereference on read at 0x00000058 <snip> NIP [c000000000506cb8] event_sched_out+0x40/0x258 LR [c00000000050e8a4] __perf_remove_from_context+0x7c/0x2b0 Call Trace: [c00000025fc3fc30] [c00000025f8457a8] 0xc00000025f8457a8 (unreliable) [c00000025fc3fc80] [fffffffffffffee0] 0xfffffffffffffee0 [c00000025fc3fcd0] [c000000000501e70] event_function+0xa8/0x120 <snip> Kernel panic - not syncing: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!

Fix this by adding the module ownership to 'vpa_pmu' so that the module 'vpa_pmu' is ref-counted and prevented from being unloaded when perf-events are initialized.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.13.11, 6.14.2, 6.15
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.3.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.3.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.3.1
  • kernel-source-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.3.1
  • 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-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:01972-1SUSE-SU-2025:01967-1SUSE-SU-2025:01951-1

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-2025-22094 updated

kernel: powerpc/perf: Fix ref-counting on the PMU 'vpa_pmu'

  • 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

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/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

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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