Linux Kernel up to 6.17.12/6.18.1 del_gendisk race condition

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability labeled as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.17.12/6.18.1. Affected is the function del_gendisk. Executing a manipulation can lead to race condition. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-68373. There is no exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.17.12/6.18.1. This vulnerability affects the function del_gendisk. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a race condition vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-362. The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently. The impact remains unknown. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md: avoid repeated calls to del_gendisk There is a uaf problem which is found by case 23rdev-lifetime: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdead000000000122 RIP: 0010:bdi_unregister+0x4b/0x170 Call Trace: <TASK> __del_gendisk+0x356/0x3e0 mddev_unlock+0x351/0x360 rdev_attr_store+0x217/0x280 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x14a/0x210 vfs_write+0x29e/0x550 ksys_write+0x74/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0xbb/0x380 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7ff5250a177e The sequence is: 1. rdev remove path gets reconfig_mutex 2. rdev remove path release reconfig_mutex in mddev_unlock 3. md stop calls do_md_stop and sets MD_DELETED 4. rdev remove path calls del_gendisk because MD_DELETED is set 5. md stop path release reconfig_mutex and calls del_gendisk again So there is a race condition we should resolve. This patch adds a flag MD_DO_DELETE to avoid the race condition.

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2025-68373 since 12/16/2025. The exploitation appears to be difficult. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279702 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-68373), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.17.13, 6.18.2 or 6.19-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch b4c5cf406062ad44cd178269571530c6435b2f3b/f0fae1debeb9102398ddf2ef69b4f5d395afafed/90e3bb44c0a86e245d8e5c6520206fa113acb1ee 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 (279702) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2920). If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Affected

• Open Source Linux Kernel

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
• 6.17.11
• 6.17.12
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1

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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