Linux Kernel up to 6.13.5 npcm devm_request_irq denial of service

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5.0	$0-$5k	0.00

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Linux Kernel up to 6.13.5. Affected is the function devm_request_irq of the component npcm. Such manipulation leads to denial of service. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2025-21878. No exploit exists. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.13.5. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this issue is the function devm_request_irq of the component npcm. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a denial of service vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-404. The product does not release or incorrectly releases a resource before it is made available for re-use. Impacted is availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: i2c: npcm: disable interrupt enable bit before devm_request_irq The customer reports that there is a soft lockup issue related to the i2c driver. After checking, the i2c module was doing a tx transfer and the bmc machine reboots in the middle of the i2c transaction, the i2c module keeps the status without being reset. Due to such an i2c module status, the i2c irq handler keeps getting triggered since the i2c irq handler is registered in the kernel booting process after the bmc machine is doing a warm rebooting. The continuous triggering is stopped by the soft lockup watchdog timer. Disable the interrupt enable bit in the i2c module before calling devm_request_irq to fix this issue since the i2c relative status bit is read-only. Here is the soft lockup log. [ 28.176395] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 26s! [swapper/0:1] [ 28.183351] Modules linked in: [ 28.186407] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 5.15.120-yocto-s-dirty-bbebc78 #1 [ 28.201174] pstate: 40000005 (nZcv daif -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) [ 28.208128] pc : __do_softirq+0xb0/0x368 [ 28.212055] lr : __do_softirq+0x70/0x368 [ 28.215972] sp : ffffff8035ebca00 [ 28.219278] x29: ffffff8035ebca00 x28: 0000000000000002 x27: ffffff80071a3780 [ 28.226412] x26: ffffffc008bdc000 x25: ffffffc008bcc640 x24: ffffffc008be50c0 [ 28.233546] x23: ffffffc00800200c x22: 0000000000000000 x21: 000000000000001b [ 28.240679] x20: 0000000000000000 x19: ffffff80001c3200 x18: ffffffffffffffff [ 28.247812] x17: ffffffc02d2e0000 x16: ffffff8035eb8b40 x15: 00001e8480000000 [ 28.254945] x14: 02c3647e37dbfcb6 x13: 02c364f2ab14200c x12: 0000000002c364f2 [ 28.262078] x11: 00000000fa83b2da x10: 000000000000b67e x9 : ffffffc008010250 [ 28.269211] x8 : 000000009d983d00 x7 : 7fffffffffffffff x6 : 0000036d74732434 [ 28.276344] x5 : 00ffffffffffffff x4 : 0000000000000015 x3 : 0000000000000198 [ 28.283476] x2 : ffffffc02d2e0000 x1 : 00000000000000e0 x0 : ffffffc008bdcb40 [ 28.290611] Call trace: [ 28.293052] __do_softirq+0xb0/0x368 [ 28.296625] __irq_exit_rcu+0xe0/0x100 [ 28.300374] irq_exit+0x14/0x20 [ 28.303513] handle_domain_irq+0x68/0x90 [ 28.307440] gic_handle_irq+0x78/0xb0 [ 28.311098] call_on_irq_stack+0x20/0x38 [ 28.315019] do_interrupt_handler+0x54/0x5c [ 28.319199] el1_interrupt+0x2c/0x4c [ 28.322777] el1h_64_irq_handler+0x14/0x20 [ 28.326872] el1h_64_irq+0x74/0x78 [ 28.330269] __setup_irq+0x454/0x780 [ 28.333841] request_threaded_irq+0xd0/0x1b4 [ 28.338107] devm_request_threaded_irq+0x84/0x100 [ 28.342809] npcm_i2c_probe_bus+0x188/0x3d0 [ 28.346990] platform_probe+0x6c/0xc4 [ 28.350653] really_probe+0xcc/0x45c [ 28.354227] __driver_probe_device+0x8c/0x160 [ 28.358578] driver_probe_device+0x44/0xe0 [ 28.362670] __driver_attach+0x124/0x1d0 [ 28.366589] bus_for_each_dev+0x7c/0xe0 [ 28.370426] driver_attach+0x28/0x30 [ 28.373997] bus_add_driver+0x124/0x240 [ 28.377830] driver_register+0x7c/0x124 [ 28.381662] __platform_driver_register+0x2c/0x34 [ 28.386362] npcm_i2c_init+0x3c/0x5c [ 28.389937] do_one_initcall+0x74/0x230 [ 28.393768] kernel_init_freeable+0x24c/0x2b4 [ 28.398126] kernel_init+0x28/0x130 [ 28.401614] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20 [ 28.405189] Kernel panic - not syncing: softlockup: hung tasks [ 28.411011] SMP: stopping secondary CPUs [ 28.414933] Kernel Offset: disabled [ 28.418412] CPU features: 0x00000000,00000802 [ 28.427644] Rebooting in 20 seconds..

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2025-21878 since 12/29/2024. The exploitation is known to be difficult. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 234309 (Debian dsa-5900 : affs-modules-6.1.0-28-4kc-malta-di - security update), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.235, 5.15.179, 6.1.130, 6.6.81, 6.12.18 or 6.13.6 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch f32d7b4dc6e791523c70e83049645dcba2a2aa33/e3aea1dba97d31eceed7b622000af0406988b9c8/545b563eb00d0576775da4011b3f7ffefc9e8c60/1b267e1b87d52b16e7dfcc7ab2ab760f6f8f9ca9/12d0e39916705b68d2d8ba20a8e35d1d27afc260/846e371631c57365eeb89e5db1ab0f344169af93/dd1998e243f5fa25d348a384ba0b6c84d980f2b2 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 (234309) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0649). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Dell Avamar
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• SolarWinds Security Event Manager
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.234
• 5.15.178
• 6.1.129
• 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
• 6.6.72
• 6.6.73
• 6.6.74
• 6.6.75
• 6.6.76
• 6.6.77
• 6.6.78
• 6.6.79
• 6.6.80
• 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
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.12.13
• 6.12.14
• 6.12.15
• 6.12.16
• 6.12.17
• 6.13.0
• 6.13.1
• 6.13.2
• 6.13.3
• 6.13.4
• 6.13.5

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔍
• 🔍
• 🔍

CPE 2.2info

• 🔍
• 🔍
• 🔍

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔍
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 5.1
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 5.0

VulDB Base Score: 4.8
VulDB Temp Score: 4.6
VulDB Vector: 🔍
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

NVD Base Score: 5.5
NVD Vector: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔍
VulDB Temp Score: 🔍
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Denial of service
CWE: CWE-404
CAPEC: 🔍
ATT&CK: 🔍

Physical: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: Partially

Availability: 🔍
Status: Not defined

EPSS Score: 🔍
EPSS Percentile: 🔍

Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔍

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Nessus ID: 234309
Nessus Name: Debian dsa-5900 : affs-modules-6.1.0-28-4kc-malta-di - security update

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔍

Upgrade: Kernel 5.10.235/5.15.179/6.1.130/6.6.81/6.12.18/6.13.6
Patch: f32d7b4dc6e791523c70e83049645dcba2a2aa33/e3aea1dba97d31eceed7b622000af0406988b9c8/545b563eb00d0576775da4011b3f7ffefc9e8c60/1b267e1b87d52b16e7dfcc7ab2ab760f6f8f9ca9/12d0e39916705b68d2d8ba20a8e35d1d27afc260/846e371631c57365eeb89e5db1ab0f344169af93/dd1998e243f5fa25d348a384ba0b6c84d980f2b2

Timelineinfo

12/29/2024 🔍
03/27/2025 +88 days 🔍
03/27/2025 +0 days 🔍
12/07/2025 +255 days 🔍

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2025-21878 (🔍)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2025-21878
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-301652
CERT Bund: WID-SEC-2025-0649 - Linux Kernel: Mehrere Schwachstellen

Entryinfo

Created: 03/27/2025 16:23
Updated: 12/07/2025 12:37
Changes: 03/27/2025 16:23 (59), 04/14/2025 11:59 (2), 08/25/2025 04:48 (7), 10/29/2025 20:07 (12), 12/07/2025 12:37 (1)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Discussion

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