Linux Kernel up to 6.17.10 xsk xsk_cq_submit_addr_locked null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.17.10 and classified as critical. Affected is the function xsk_cq_submit_addr_locked of the component xsk. The manipulation results in null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2025-40290. There is no exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.17.10. Affected is the function xsk_cq_submit_addr_locked of the component xsk. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as 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. This is going to have an impact on availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xsk: avoid data corruption on cq descriptor number Since commit 30f241fcf52a ("xsk: Fix immature cq descriptor production"), the descriptor number is stored in skb control block and xsk_cq_submit_addr_locked() relies on it to put the umem addrs onto pool's completion queue. skb control block shouldn't be used for this purpose as after transmit xsk doesn't have control over it and other subsystems could use it. This leads to the following kernel panic due to a NULL pointer dereference. BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 2 UID: 1 PID: 927 Comm: p4xsk.bin Not tainted 6.16.12+deb14-cloud-amd64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Debian 6.16.12-1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-debian-1.17.0-1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:xsk_destruct_skb+0xd0/0x180 [...] Call Trace: <IRQ> ? napi_complete_done+0x7a/0x1a0 ip_rcv_core+0x1bb/0x340 ip_rcv+0x30/0x1f0 __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x85/0xa0 process_backlog+0x87/0x130 __napi_poll+0x28/0x180 net_rx_action+0x339/0x420 handle_softirqs+0xdc/0x320 ? handle_edge_irq+0x90/0x1e0 do_softirq.part.0+0x3b/0x60 </IRQ> <TASK> __local_bh_enable_ip+0x60/0x70 __dev_direct_xmit+0x14e/0x1f0 __xsk_generic_xmit+0x482/0xb70 ? __remove_hrtimer+0x41/0xa0 ? __xsk_generic_xmit+0x51/0xb70 ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0xe/0x40 xsk_sendmsg+0xda/0x1c0 __sys_sendto+0x1ee/0x200 __x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30 do_syscall_64+0x84/0x2f0 ? __pfx_pollwake+0x10/0x10 ? __rseq_handle_notify_resume+0xad/0x4c0 ? restore_fpregs_from_fpstate+0x3c/0x90 ? switch_fpu_return+0x5b/0xe0 ? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0 ? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0 ? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e </TASK> [...] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt Kernel Offset: 0x1c000000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbfffffff) Instead use the skb destructor_arg pointer along with pointer tagging. As pointers are always aligned to 8B, use the bottom bit to indicate whether this a single address or an allocated struct containing several addresses.

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2025-40290 since 04/16/2025. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 302766 (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS / 25.10 : Linux kernel vulnerabilities (USN-8094-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.17.11 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c5ea2e50b5c9aa80c5b53526257540f0c26cd66d/0ebc27a4c67d44e5ce88d21cdad8201862b78837 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 (302766) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2756). 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
• NetApp FAS
• NetApp AFF
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Microsoft Azure Linux

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.17.0
• 6.17.1
• 6.17.2
• 6.17.3
• 6.17.4
• 6.17.5
• 6.17.6
• 6.17.7
• 6.17.8
• 6.17.9
• 6.17.10

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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