Linux Kernel up to 6.1.124/6.6.71/6.12.9/6.13-rc6 cookie_hmac_alg null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.124/6.6.71/6.12.9/6.13-rc6. Affected is an unknown function of the component cookie_hmac_alg. This manipulation causes null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2025-21640. No exploit is available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.124/6.6.71/6.12.9/6.13-rc6. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code of the component cookie_hmac_alg. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: sysctl: cookie_hmac_alg: avoid using current->nsproxy As mentioned in a previous commit of this series, using the 'net' structure via 'current' is not recommended for different reasons: - Inconsistency: getting info from the reader's/writer's netns vs only from the opener's netns. - current->nsproxy can be NULL in some cases, resulting in an 'Oops' (null-ptr-deref), e.g. when the current task is exiting, as spotted by syzbot [1] using acct(2). The 'net' structure can be obtained from the table->data using container_of(). Note that table->data could also be used directly, as this is the only member needed from the 'net' structure, but that would increase the size of this fix, to use '*data' everywhere 'net->sctp.sctp_hmac_alg' is used.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2025-21640 since 12/29/2024. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 215144 (Debian dsa-5860 : affs-modules-6.1.0-21-4kc-malta-di - security update), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.1.125, 6.6.72, 6.12.10 or 6.13-rc7 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 3cd0659deb9c03535fd61839e91d4d4d3e51ac71/ad673e514b2793b8d5902f6ba6ab7e890dea23d5/f0bb3935470684306e4e04793a20ac4c4b08de0b/ea62dd1383913b5999f3d16ae99d411f41b528d4 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (215144) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0119). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Avamar
• Dell PowerProtect Data Domain
• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.1.124
• 6.6.0
• 6.6.1
• 6.6.2
• 6.6.3
• 6.6.4
• 6.6.5
• 6.6.6
• 6.6.7
• 6.6.8
• 6.6.9
• 6.6.10
• 6.6.11
• 6.6.12
• 6.6.13
• 6.6.14
• 6.6.15
• 6.6.16
• 6.6.17
• 6.6.18
• 6.6.19
• 6.6.20
• 6.6.21
• 6.6.22
• 6.6.23
• 6.6.24
• 6.6.25
• 6.6.26
• 6.6.27
• 6.6.28
• 6.6.29
• 6.6.30
• 6.6.31
• 6.6.32
• 6.6.33
• 6.6.34
• 6.6.35
• 6.6.36
• 6.6.37
• 6.6.38
• 6.6.39
• 6.6.40
• 6.6.41
• 6.6.42
• 6.6.43
• 6.6.44
• 6.6.45
• 6.6.46
• 6.6.47
• 6.6.48
• 6.6.49
• 6.6.50
• 6.6.51
• 6.6.52
• 6.6.53
• 6.6.54
• 6.6.55
• 6.6.56
• 6.6.57
• 6.6.58
• 6.6.59
• 6.6.60
• 6.6.61
• 6.6.62
• 6.6.63
• 6.6.64
• 6.6.65
• 6.6.66
• 6.6.67
• 6.6.68
• 6.6.69
• 6.6.70
• 6.6.71
• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8
• 6.12.9
• 6.13-rc1
• 6.13-rc2
• 6.13-rc3
• 6.13-rc4
• 6.13-rc5
• 6.13-rc6

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Exploitinginfo

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Entryinfo

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