Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-23161)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-23161). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

PCI: vmd: Make vmd_dev::cfg_lock a raw_spinlock_t type

The access to the PCI config space via pci_ops::read and pci_ops::write is
a low-level hardware access. The functions can be accessed with disabled
interrupts even on PREEMPT_RT. The pci_lock is a raw_spinlock_t for this
purpose.

A spinlock_t becomes a sleeping lock on PREEMPT_RT, so it cannot be
acquired with disabled interrupts. The vmd_dev::cfg_lock is accessed in
the same context as the pci_lock.

Make vmd_dev::cfg_lock a raw_spinlock_t type so it can be used with
interrupts disabled.

This was reported as:

BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/locking/spinlock_rt.c:48
Call Trace:
rt_spin_lock+0x4e/0x130
vmd_pci_read+0x8d/0x100 [vmd]
pci_user_read_config_byte+0x6f/0xe0
pci_read_config+0xfe/0x290
sysfs_kf_bin_read+0x68/0x90

[bigeasy: reword commit message]
Tested-off-by: Luis Claudio R. Goncalves
[kwilczynski: commit log]
[bhelgaas: add back report info from
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241218115951.83062-1-ryotkkr98@gmail.com/]

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-2025-23161 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-23161" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-23161 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3 — 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 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3.

🛡️ 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 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3
```
ステージング環境で 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3 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":"4.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.181"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.135"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.88"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.24"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.13.12"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.14.0"},{"fixed":"6.14.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-23161 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.140-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23161 linux
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-23161 linux