Linux Kernel up to 6.12.54/6.17.4/6.18-rc1 btrfs_load_block_group_zone_info memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.54/6.17.4/6.18-rc1. Affected by this issue is the function btrfs_load_block_group_zone_info. Executing a manipulation can lead to memory leak. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2025-40101. No exploit exists. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.54/6.17.4/6.18-rc1. This vulnerability affects the function btrfs_load_block_group_zone_info. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. As an impact it is known to affect availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix memory leaks when rejecting a non SINGLE data profile without an RST At the end of btrfs_load_block_group_zone_info() the first thing we do is to ensure that if the mapping type is not a SINGLE one and there is no RAID stripe tree, then we return early with an error. Doing that, though, prevents the code from running the last calls from this function which are about freeing memory allocated during its run. Hence, in this case, instead of returning early, we set the ret value and fall through the rest of the cleanup code.

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2025-40101 since 04/16/2025. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 272060 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-40101), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.55, 6.17.5 or 6.18-rc2 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 187333e6d484c6630286bfdd07c79d6815a63887/602701d00439e113331ee9c1283e95afdcb8849d/fec9b9d3ced39f16be8d7afdf81f4dd2653da319 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 (272060) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2450). If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Dell NetWorker

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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
• 6.12.22
• 6.12.23
• 6.12.24
• 6.12.25
• 6.12.26
• 6.12.27
• 6.12.28
• 6.12.29
• 6.12.30
• 6.12.31
• 6.12.32
• 6.12.33
• 6.12.34
• 6.12.35
• 6.12.36
• 6.12.37
• 6.12.38
• 6.12.39
• 6.12.40
• 6.12.41
• 6.12.42
• 6.12.43
• 6.12.44
• 6.12.45
• 6.12.46
• 6.12.47
• 6.12.48
• 6.12.49
• 6.12.50
• 6.12.51
• 6.12.52
• 6.12.53
• 6.12.54
• 6.17.0
• 6.17.1
• 6.17.2
• 6.17.3
• 6.17.4
• 6.18-rc1

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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Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

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