Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40016)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40016). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

media: uvcvideo: Mark invalid entities with id UVC_INVALID_ENTITY_ID

Per UVC 1.1+ specification 3.7.2, units and terminals must have a non-zero
unique ID.

Each Unit and Terminal within the video function is assigned a unique
identification number, the Unit ID (UID) or Terminal ID (TID), contained in
the bUnitID or bTerminalID field of the descriptor. The value 0x00 is
reserved for undefined ID,

If we add a new entity with id 0 or a duplicated ID, it will be marked
as UVC_INVALID_ENTITY_ID.

In a previous attempt commit 3dd075fe8ebb ("media: uvcvideo: Require
entities to have a non-zero unique ID"), we ignored all the invalid units,
this broke a lot of non-compatible cameras. Hopefully we are more lucky
this time.

This also prevents some syzkaller reproducers from triggering warnings due
to a chain of entities referring to themselves. In one particular case, an
Output Unit is connected to an Input Unit, both with the same ID of 1. But
when looking up for the source ID of the Output Unit, that same entity is
found instead of the input entity, which leads to such warnings.

In another case, a backward chain was considered finished as the source ID
was 0. Later on, that entity was found, but its pads were not valid.

Here is a sample stack trace for one of those cases.

[ 20.650953] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using dummy_hcd
[ 20.830206] usb 1-1: Using ep0 maxpacket: 8
[ 20.833…

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-2025-40016 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-40016" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-40016 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1 — 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 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1.

🛡️ 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 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1
```
ステージング環境で 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.6.110, 6.12.51, 6.16.11, 6.17.1 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":"5.7.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.203"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.169"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.110"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.51"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.16.11"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.17.0"},{"fixed":"6.17.1"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-40016 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.170-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40016 linux
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40016 linux-hwe-edge