Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-39797)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-39797). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

xfrm: Duplicate SPI Handling

The issue originates when Strongswan initiates an XFRM_MSG_ALLOCSPI
Netlink message, which triggers the kernel function xfrm_alloc_spi().
This function is expected to ensure uniqueness of the Security Parameter
Index (SPI) for inbound Security Associations (SAs). However, it can
return success even when the requested SPI is already in use, leading
to duplicate SPIs assigned to multiple inbound SAs, differentiated
only by their destination addresses.

This behavior causes inconsistencies during SPI lookups for inbound packets.
Since the lookup may return an arbitrary SA among those with the same SPI,
packet processing can fail, resulting in packet drops.

According to RFC 4301 section 4.4.2 , for inbound processing a unicast SA
is uniquely identified by the SPI and optionally protocol.

Reproducing the Issue Reliably:
To consistently reproduce the problem, restrict the available SPI range in
charon.conf : spi_min = 0x10000000 spi_max = 0x10000002
This limits the system to only 2 usable SPI values.
Next, create more than 2 Child SA. each using unique pair of src/dst address.
As soon as the 3rd Child SA is initiated, it will be assigned a duplicate
SPI, since the SPI pool is already exhausted.
With a narrow SPI range, the issue is consistently reproducible.
With a broader/default range, it becomes rare and unpredictable.

Current implementation:
xfrm_spi_hash() lookup function comp…

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-2025-39797 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-39797" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-39797 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2 — 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 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2.

🛡️ 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 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2
```
ステージング環境で 6.6.103, 6.12.43, 6.15.11, 6.16.2 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":"2.6.12"},{"fixed":"6.6.103"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.43"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.11"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.16.2"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-39797 linux-lts
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-39797 linux
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-39797 linux