Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40042)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40042). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

tracing: Fix race condition in kprobe initialization causing NULL pointer dereference

There is a critical race condition in kprobe initialization that can lead to
NULL pointer dereference and kernel crash.

[1135630.084782] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 0000710a04630000
...
[1135630.260314] pstate: 404003c9 (nZcv DAIF +PAN -UAO)
[1135630.269239] pc : kprobe_perf_func+0x30/0x260
[1135630.277643] lr : kprobe_dispatcher+0x44/0x60
[1135630.286041] sp : ffffaeff4977fa40
[1135630.293441] x29: ffffaeff4977fa40 x28: ffffaf015340e400
[1135630.302837] x27: 0000000000000000 x26: 0000000000000000
[1135630.312257] x25: ffffaf029ed108a8 x24: ffffaf015340e528
[1135630.321705] x23: ffffaeff4977fc50 x22: ffffaeff4977fc50
[1135630.331154] x21: 0000000000000000 x20: ffffaeff4977fc50
[1135630.340586] x19: ffffaf015340e400 x18: 0000000000000000
[1135630.349985] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000
[1135630.359285] x15: 0000000000000000 x14: 0000000000000000
[1135630.368445] x13: 0000000000000000 x12: 0000000000000000
[1135630.377473] x11: 0000000000000000 x10: 0000000000000000
[1135630.386411] x9 : 0000000000000000 x8 : 0000000000000000
[1135630.395252] x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 0000000000000000
[1135630.403963] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000000
[1135630.412545] x3 : 0000710a04630000 x2 : 0000000000000006
[1135630.421021] x1 : ffffaeff4977fc50 x0 : 0000710a04630000
[1135630.429410]…

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-2025-40042 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-40042" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-40042 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3 — 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 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3.

🛡️ 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 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3
```
ステージング環境で 5.4.301, 5.10.246, 5.15.195, 6.1.157, 6.6.113, 6.12.54, 6.17.3 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":"2.6.33"},{"fixed":"5.4.301"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.246"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.195"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.157"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.113"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.54"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.17.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-40042 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.158-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40042 linux Fixed in: 5.10.247-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40042 linux