CVE-2025-68375 json
perf/x86: Fix NULL event access and potential PEBS record loss
published 2025-12-24 10 mo ago modified 2026-10-13 26 d ago also EUVD-2025-205079
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 8%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
perf/x86: Fix NULL event access and potential PEBS record loss
When intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() is called to drain PEBS records, the perf_event_overflow() could be called to process the last PEBS record.
While perf_event_overflow() could trigger the interrupt throttle and stop all events of the group, like what the below call-chain shows.
perf_event_overflow() -> __perf_event_overflow() ->__perf_event_account_interrupt() -> perf_event_throttle_group() -> perf_event_throttle() -> event->pmu->stop() -> x86_pmu_stop()
The side effect of stopping the events is that all corresponding event pointers in cpuc->events[] array are cleared to NULL.
Assume there are two PEBS events (event a and event b) in a group. When intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() calls perf_event_overflow() to process the last PEBS record of PEBS event a, interrupt throttle is triggered and all pointers of event a and event b are cleared to NULL. Then intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() tries to process the last PEBS record of event b and encounters NULL pointer access.
To avoid this issue, move cpuc->events[] clearing from x86_pmu_stop() to x86_pmu_del(). It's safe since cpuc->active_mask or cpuc->pebs_enabled is always checked before access the event pointer from cpuc->events[].
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 6.17.13, 6.18.2, 6.19
- linux Debian 14 6.17.13-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68375
- linux Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-19.19
- linux-aws Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1009.9
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1009.9
- linux-azure Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1010.10
- linux-raspi Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1010.10
- linux-riscv Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-19.19.1
- linux-oracle Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1009.9
- linux-aws-6.17 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.17.0-1009.9~24.04.2
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68375
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-source-longterm openSUSE Tumbleweed 6.18.16-1.1
- kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 6.18.5-1.1
opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:10301-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10039-1
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-2025-68375 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: Linux kernel: Denial of Service due to null pointer dereference in perf/x86 PEBS processing
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernelaffected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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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 morenot 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
0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 8% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2025-68375
- NVD CVE-2025-68375
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