Linux Kernel up to 6.12.21/6.13.9/6.14.0 xhci_hcd buffer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.21/6.13.9/6.14.0. The affected element is an unknown function of the component xhci_hcd. The manipulation results in buffer overflow. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2025-22022. No exploit exists. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.21/6.13.9/6.14.0. Affected is some unknown functionality of the component xhci_hcd. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a buffer overflow vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-120. The product copies an input buffer to an output buffer without verifying that the size of the input buffer is less than the size of the output buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: usb: xhci: Apply the link chain quirk on NEC isoc endpoints Two clearly different specimens of NEC uPD720200 (one with start/stop bug, one without) were seen to cause IOMMU faults after some Missed Service Errors. Faulting address is immediately after a transfer ring segment and patched dynamic debug messages revealed that the MSE was received when waiting for a TD near the end of that segment: [ 1.041954] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ffa08fe0 [ 1.042120] xhci_hcd: AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT domain=0x0005 address=0xffa09000 flags=0x0000] [ 1.042146] xhci_hcd: AMD-Vi: Event logged [IO_PAGE_FAULT domain=0x0005 address=0xffa09040 flags=0x0000] It gets even funnier if the next page is a ring segment accessible to the HC. Below, it reports MSE in segment at ff1e8000, plows through a zero-filled page at ff1e9000 and starts reporting events for TRBs in page at ff1ea000 every microframe, instead of jumping to seg ff1e6000. [ 7.041671] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ff1e8fe0 [ 7.041999] xhci_hcd: Miss service interval error for slot 1 ep 2 expected TD DMA ff1e8fe0 [ 7.042011] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042028] xhci_hcd: All TDs skipped for slot 1 ep 2. Clear skip flag. [ 7.042134] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042138] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 31 [ 7.042144] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ea040 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.042259] xhci_hcd: WARN: buffer overrun event for slot 1 ep 2 on endpoint [ 7.042262] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 31 [ 7.042266] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ea050 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 At some point completion events change from Isoch Buffer Overrun to Short Packet and the HC finally finds cycle bit mismatch in ff1ec000. [ 7.098130] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 13 [ 7.098132] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ecc50 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.098254] xhci_hcd: ERROR Transfer event TRB DMA ptr not part of current TD ep_index 2 comp_code 13 [ 7.098256] xhci_hcd: Looking for event-dma 00000000ff1ecc60 trb-start 00000000ff1e6820 trb-end 00000000ff1e6820 [ 7.098379] xhci_hcd: Overrun event on slot 1 ep 2 It's possible that data from the isochronous device were written to random buffers of pending TDs on other endpoints (either IN or OUT), other devices or even other HCs in the same IOMMU domain. Lastly, an error from a different USB device on another HC. Was it caused by the above? I don't know, but it may have been. The disk was working without any other issues and generated PCIe traffic to starve the NEC of upstream BW and trigger those MSEs. The two HCs shared one x1 slot by means of a commercial "PCIe splitter" board. [ 7.162604] usb 10-2: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd [ 7.178990] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x07 driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s [ 7.179001] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x28 28 00 04 02 ae 00 00 02 00 00 [ 7.179004] I/O error, dev sdb, sector 67284480 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 5 prio class 0 Fortunately, it appears that this ridiculous bug is avoided by setting the chain bit of Link TRBs on isochronous rings. Other ancient HCs are known which also expect the bit to be set and they ignore Link TRBs if it's not. Reportedly, 0.95 spec guaranteed that the bit is set. The bandwidth-starved NEC HC running a 32KB/uframe UVC endpoint reports tens of MSEs per second and runs into the bug within seconds. Chaining Link TRBs allows the same workload to run for many minutes, many times. No ne ---truncated---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2025-22022 since 12/29/2024. The exploitability is told to be easy. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 02/10/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 240657 (Ubuntu 25.04 : Linux kernel vulnerabilities (USN-7594-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.22, 6.13.10, 6.14.1 or 6.15-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch a4931d9fb99eb5462f3eaa231999d279c40afb21/43a18225150ce874d23b37761c302a5dffee1595/061a1683bae6ef56ab8fa392725ba7495515cd1d/bb0ba4cb1065e87f9cc75db1fa454e56d0894d01 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 (240657), EUVD (EUVD-2025-11377) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0837). VulDB is the best source for vulnerability data and more expert information about this specific topic.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Dell Avamar
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.0
• 6.1
• 6.2
• 6.3
• 6.4
• 6.5
• 6.6
• 6.7
• 6.8
• 6.9
• 6.10
• 6.11
• 6.12
• 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
• 6.12.21
• 6.13
• 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
• 6.13.9
• 6.14.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

VulDB is the best source for vulnerability data and more expert information about this specific topic.

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