Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-21908)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-21908). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

NFS: fix nfs_release_folio() to not deadlock via kcompactd writeback

Add PF_KCOMPACTD flag and current_is_kcompactd() helper to check for it so
nfs_release_folio() can skip calling nfs_wb_folio() from kcompactd.

Otherwise NFS can deadlock waiting for kcompactd enduced writeback which
recurses back to NFS (which triggers writeback to NFSD via NFS loopback
mount on the same host, NFSD blocks waiting for XFS's call to
__filemap_get_folio):

6070.550357] INFO: task kcompactd0:58 blocked for more than 4435 seconds.

{---
[58] "kcompactd0"
[<0>] folio_wait_bit+0xe8/0x200
[<0>] folio_wait_writeback+0x2b/0x80
[<0>] nfs_wb_folio+0x80/0x1b0 [nfs]
[<0>] nfs_release_folio+0x68/0x130 [nfs]
[<0>] split_huge_page_to_list_to_order+0x362/0x840
[<0>] migrate_pages_batch+0x43d/0xb90
[<0>] migrate_pages_sync+0x9a/0x240
[<0>] migrate_pages+0x93c/0x9f0
[<0>] compact_zone+0x8e2/0x1030
[<0>] compact_node+0xdb/0x120
[<0>] kcompactd+0x121/0x2e0
[<0>] kthread+0xcf/0x100
[<0>] ret_from_fork+0x31/0x40
[<0>] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
---}

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix build]

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-21908 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-21908" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-21908 (Kernel)
Attack vector: local / no user interaction
Patched: 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7
```
ステージング環境で 6.6.83, 6.12.19, 6.13.7 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.3.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.83"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.19"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.13.7"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-21908 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.41-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21908 linux Fixed in: 6.12.19-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21908 linux