Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-21974)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-21974). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.12.20, 6.13.8 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

eth: bnxt: return fail if interface is down in bnxt_queue_mem_alloc()

The bnxt_queue_mem_alloc() is called to allocate new queue memory when
a queue is restarted.
It internally accesses rx buffer descriptor corresponding to the index.
The rx buffer descriptor is allocated and set when the interface is up
and it's freed when the interface is down.
So, if queue is restarted if interface is down, kernel panic occurs.

Splat looks like:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 000000000000b240
#PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 1563 Comm: ncdevmem2 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc2+ #9 844ddba6e7c459cafd0bf4db9a3198e
Hardware name: ASUS System Product Name/PRIME Z690-P D4, BIOS 0603 11/01/2021
RIP: 0010:bnxt_queue_mem_alloc+0x3f/0x4e0 [bnxt_en]
Code: 41 54 4d 89 c4 4d 69 c0 c0 05 00 00 55 48 89 f5 53 48 89 fb 4c 8d b5 40 05 00 00 48 83 ec 15
RSP: 0018:ffff9dcc83fef9e8 EFLAGS: 00010202
RAX: ffffffffc0457720 RBX: ffff934ed8d40000 RCX: 0000000000000000
RDX: 000000000000001f RSI: ffff934ea508f800 RDI: ffff934ea508f808
RBP: ffff934ea508f800 R08: 000000000000b240 R09: ffff934e84f4b000
R10: ffff9dcc83fefa30 R11: ffff934e84f4b000 R12: 000000000000001f
R13: ffff934ed8d40ac0 R14: ffff934ea508fd40 R15: ffff934e84f4b000
FS: 00007fa73888c740(0000) GS:ffff93559f780000(0000) knlGS:00000000000000…

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-2025-21974 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.12.20, 6.13.8 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-21974" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-21974 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.12.20, 6.13.8 — 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 6.12.20, 6.13.8.

🛡️ 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 6.12.20, 6.13.8
```
ステージング環境で 6.12.20, 6.13.8 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":"6.11.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.20"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.13.8"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-21974 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.41-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21974 linux Fixed in: 6.12.20-1