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CVE-2025-39992 Detail

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: swap: check for stable address space before operating on the VMA It is possible to hit a zero entry while traversing the vmas in unuse_mm() called from swapoff path and accessing it causes the OOPS: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000446--> Loading the memory from offset 0x40 on the XA_ZERO_ENTRY as address. Mem abort info: ESR = 0x0000000096000005 EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits SET = 0, FnV = 0 EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 FSC = 0x05: level 1 translation fault The issue is manifested from the below race between the fork() on a process and swapoff: fork(dup_mmap()) swapoff(unuse_mm) --------------- ----------------- 1) Identical mtree is built using __mt_dup(). 2) copy_pte_range()--> copy_nonpresent_pte(): The dst mm is added into the mmlist to be visible to the swapoff operation. 3) Fatal signal is sent to the parent process(which is the current during the fork) thus skip the duplication of the vmas and mark the vma range with XA_ZERO_ENTRY as a marker for this process that helps during exit_mmap(). 4) swapoff is tried on the 'mm' added to the 'mmlist' as part of the 2. 5) unuse_mm(), that iterates through the vma's of this 'mm' will hit the non-NULL zero entry and operating on this zero entry as a vma is resulting into the oops. The proper fix would be around not exposing this partially-valid tree to others when droping the mmap lock, which is being solved with [1]. A simpler solution would be checking for MMF_UNSTABLE, as it is set if mm_struct is not fully initialized in dup_mmap(). Thanks to Liam/Lorenzo/David for all the suggestions in fixing this issue.


Metrics

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CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

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URL Source(s) Tag(s)
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1367da7eb875d01102d2ed18654b24d261ff5393 kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4e5f060d7347466f77aaff1c0d5a6c4f1fb217ac kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9cddad3b26dac830407d2d3c0de5205ff6d6dda0 kernel.org
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e4e99d69b8b8295c501b2eef89e13306b738b667 kernel.org

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source

Change History

1 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2025-39992
NVD Published Date:
10/15/2025
NVD Last Modified:
10/16/2025
Source:
kernel.org