// For flags

CVE-2025-39737

mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup in __kmemleak_do_cleanup()

Severity Score

5.5
*CVSS v3

Exploit Likelihood

*EPSS

Affected Versions

*CPE

Public Exploits

0
*Multiple Sources

Exploited in Wild

-
*KEV

Decision

-
*SSVC
Descriptions

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup in __kmemleak_do_cleanup() A soft lockup warning was observed on a relative small system x86-64
system with 16 GB of memory when running a debug kernel with kmemleak
enabled. watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#8 stuck for 33s! [kworker/8:1:134] The test system was running a workload with hot unplug happening in
parallel. Then kemleak decided to disable itself due to its inability to
allocate more kmemleak objects. The debug kernel has its
CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_MEM_POOL_SIZE set to 40,000. The soft lockup happened in kmemleak_do_cleanup() when the existing
kmemleak objects were being removed and deleted one-by-one in a loop via a
workqueue. In this particular case, there are at least 40,000 objects
that need to be processed and given the slowness of a debug kernel and the
fact that a raw_spinlock has to be acquired and released in
__delete_object(), it could take a while to properly handle all these
objects. As kmemleak has been disabled in this case, the object removal and
deletion process can be further optimized as locking isn't really needed. However, it is probably not worth the effort to optimize for such an edge
case that should rarely happen. So the simple solution is to call
cond_resched() at periodic interval in the iteration loop to avoid soft
lockup.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup in __kmemleak_do_cleanup() A soft lockup warning was observed on a relative small system x86-64 system with 16 GB of memory when running a debug kernel with kmemleak enabled. watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#8 stuck for 33s! [kworker/8:1:134] The test system was running a workload with hot unplug happening in parallel. Then kemleak decided to disable itself due to its inability to allocate more kmemleak objects. The debug kernel has its CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK_MEM_POOL_SIZE set to 40,000. The soft lockup happened in kmemleak_do_cleanup() when the existing kmemleak objects were being removed and deleted one-by-one in a loop via a workqueue. In this particular case, there are at least 40,000 objects that need to be processed and given the slowness of a debug kernel and the fact that a raw_spinlock has to be acquired and released in __delete_object(), it could take a while to properly handle all these objects. As kmemleak has been disabled in this case, the object removal and deletion process can be further optimized as locking isn't really needed. However, it is probably not worth the effort to optimize for such an edge case that should rarely happen. So the simple solution is to call cond_resched() at periodic interval in the iteration loop to avoid soft lockup.

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a privilege escalation, denial of service or information leaks. For the oldstable distribution (bookworm), these problems have been fixed in version 6.1.153-1.

*Credits: N/A
CVSS Scores
Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Medium
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Complete
* Common Vulnerability Scoring System
SSVC
  • Decision:-
Exploitation
-
Automatable
-
Tech. Impact
-
* Organization's Worst-case Scenario
Timeline
  • 2025-04-16 CVE Reserved
  • 2025-09-11 CVE Published
  • 2025-11-03 CVE Updated
  • 2025-11-18 EPSS Updated
  • ---------- Exploited in Wild
  • ---------- KEV Due Date
  • ---------- First Exploit
CWE
CAPEC
Affected Vendors, Products, and Versions
Vendor Product Version Other Status
Vendor Product Version Other Status <-- --> Vendor Product Version Other Status
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 5.4.297
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 5.4.297"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 5.10.241
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 5.10.241"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 5.15.190
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 5.15.190"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.1.149
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.1.149"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.6.103
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.6.103"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.12.43
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.12.43"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.15.11
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.15.11"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.16.2
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.16.2"
en
Affected
Linux
Search vendor "Linux"
Linux Kernel
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel"
< 6.17
Search vendor "Linux" for product "Linux Kernel" and version " < 6.17"
en
Affected