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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-37878 json

perf/core: Fix WARN_ON(!ctx) in __free_event() for partial init

published 2025-05-09 18 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-14112

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 20%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

perf/core: Fix WARN_ON(!ctx) in __free_event() for partial init

Move the get_ctx(child_ctx) call and the child_event->ctx assignment to occur immediately after the child event is allocated. Ensure that child_event->ctx is non-NULL before any subsequent error path within inherit_event calls free_event(), satisfying the assumptions of the cleanup code.

Details:

There's no clear Fixes tag, because this bug is a side-effect of multiple interacting commits over time (up to 15 years old), not a single regression.

The code initially incremented refcount then assigned context immediately after the child_event was created. Later, an early validity check for child_event was added before the refcount/assignment. Even later, a WARN_ON_ONCE() cleanup check was added, assuming event->ctx is valid if the pmu_ctx is valid. The problem is that the WARN_ON_ONCE() could trigger after the initial check passed but before child_event->ctx was assigned, violating its precondition. The solution is to assign child_event->ctx right after its initial validation. This ensures the context exists for any subsequent checks or cleanup routines, resolving the WARN_ON_ONCE().

To resolve it, defer the refcount update and child_event->ctx assignment directly after child_event->pmu_ctx is set but before checking if the parent event is orphaned. The cleanup routine depends on event->pmu_ctx being non-NULL before it verifies event->ctx is non-NULL. This also maintains the author's original intent of passing in child_ctx to find_get_pmu_context before its refcount/assignment.

[ mingo: Expanded the changelog from another email by Gabriel Shahrouzi. ]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.26, 6.14, 6.14.5
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.27-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-37878

  • linux-gcp-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1011.11~24.04.1
  • linux-realtime-6.14 Ubuntu Pro Realtime 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1010.10~24.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-37878

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-2025-37878 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: perf/core: Fix WARN_ON(!ctx) in __free_event() for partial init

  • 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
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

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
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
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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