Linux Kernel up to 6.1.131/6.6.84/6.12.20/6.13.8 radeon_vce_cs_parse uninitialized pointer

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.131/6.6.84/6.12.20/6.13.8. Affected is the function radeon_vce_cs_parse. This manipulation causes uninitialized pointer. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2025-21996. No exploit is available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.131/6.6.84/6.12.20/6.13.8 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function radeon_vce_cs_parse. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a uninitialized pointer vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-824. The product accesses or uses a pointer that has not been initialized. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/radeon: fix uninitialized size issue in radeon_vce_cs_parse() On the off chance that command stream passed from userspace via ioctl() call to radeon_vce_cs_parse() is weirdly crafted and first command to execute is to encode (case 0x03000001), the function in question will attempt to call radeon_vce_cs_reloc() with size argument that has not been properly initialized. Specifically, 'size' will point to 'tmp' variable before the latter had a chance to be assigned any value. Play it safe and init 'tmp' with 0, thus ensuring that radeon_vce_cs_reloc() will catch an early error in cases like these. Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with static analysis tool SVACE. (cherry picked from commit 2d52de55f9ee7aaee0e09ac443f77855989c6b68)

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2025-21996 since 12/29/2024. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 02/16/2026).

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 6.1.132, 6.6.85, 6.12.21 or 6.13.9 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 78b07dada3f02f77762d0755a96d35f53b02be69/3ce08215cad55c10a6eeeb33d3583b6cfffe3ab8/dd1801aa01bba1760357f2a641346ae149686713/f5e049028124f755283f2c07e7a3708361ed1dc8/dd8689b52a24807c2d5ce0a17cb26dc87f75235c 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-2025-0698). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

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

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.1.131
• 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
• 6.6.81
• 6.6.82
• 6.6.83
• 6.6.84
• 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
• 6.12.18
• 6.12.19
• 6.12.20
• 6.13.0
• 6.13.1
• 6.13.2
• 6.13.3
• 6.13.4
• 6.13.5
• 6.13.6
• 6.13.7
• 6.13.8

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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