CVEvulnerability
CVE-2025-38614
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2025-08-19
- Last modified
- 2026-10-15
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67)
- 7.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-674
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
eventpoll: Fix semi-unbounded recursion
Ensure that epoll instances can never form a graph deeper than
EP_MAX_NESTS+1 links.
Currently, ep_loop_check_proc() ensures that the graph is loop-free and
does some recursion depth checks, but those recursion depth checks don't
limit the depth of the resulting tree for two reasons:
- They don't look upwards in the tree.
- If there are multiple downwards paths of different lengths, only one of
the paths is actually considered for the depth check since commit
28d82dc1c4ed ("epoll: limit paths").
Essentially, the current recursion depth check in ep_loop_check_proc() just
serves to prevent it from recursing too deeply while checking for loops.
A more thorough check is done in reverse_path_check() after the new graph
edge has already been created; this checks, among other things, that no
paths going upwards from any non-epoll file with a length of more than 5
edges exist. However, this check does not apply to non-epoll files.
As a result, it is possible to recurse to a depth of at least roughly 500,
tested on v6.15. (I am unsure if deeper recursion is possible; and this may
have changed with commit 8c44dac8add7 ("eventpoll: Fix priority inversion
problem").)
To fix it:
1. In ep_loop_check_proc(), note the subtree depth of each visited node,
and use subtree depths for the total depth calculation even when a subtree
has already been visited.
2. Add ep_get_upwards_depth_proc() for similarly determining the maximum
depth of an upwards walk.
3. In ep_loop_check(), use these values to limit the total path length
between epoll nodes to EP_MAX_NESTS edges.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.32.30 < 2.6.33)
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.33.8 < 2.6.34)
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.34.10 < 2.6.35)
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.35.12 < 2.6.36)
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.37.3 < 2.6.38)
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.38.1 < 5.15.190)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.16 < 6.1.149)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.2 < 6.6.103)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.7 < 6.12.43)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.13 < 6.15.11)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.16 < 6.16.1)
• linux linux kernel 2.6.38
• debian debian linux 11.0
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1b13b033062824495554e836a1ff5f85ccf6b039 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2a0c0c974bea9619c6f41794775ae4b97530e0e6 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3542c90797bc3ab83ebab54b737d751cf3682036 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/71379495ab70eaba19224bd71b5b9b399eb85e04 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7a2125962c42d5336ca0495a9ce4cb38a63e9161 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ea5f97dbdcb1651581a22bd10afd2f0dd9dc11d6 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f2e467a48287c868818085aa35389a224d226732 Patch
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html Third Party Advisory
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html cert-portal.siemens.com
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-032379.html cert-portal.siemens.com
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-082556.html cert-portal.siemens.com
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-457936.html cert-portal.siemens.com