Vulnerability in Linux kernel (CVE-2025-68248)
Summary
Vulnerability in Linux kernel (CVE-2025-68248). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration
When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then
inflate the new page.
However, if inflating the new page succeeded, we effectively deflated the
old page, reducing the balloon size.
In that case, the migration actually worked: similar to migrating+
immediately deflating the new page. The old page will be freed back to
the buddy.
Right now, the core will leave the page be marked as isolated (as we
returned an error). When later trying to putback that page, we will run
into the WARN_ON_ONCE() in balloon_page_putback().
That handling was changed in commit 3544c4faccb8 ("mm/balloon_compaction:
stop using __ClearPageMovable()"); before that change, we would have
tolerated that way of handling it.
To fix it, let's just return 0 in that case, making the core effectively
just clear the "isolated" flag + freeing it back to the buddy as if the
migration succeeded. Note that the new page will also get freed when the
core puts the last reference.
Note that this also makes it all be more consistent: we will no longer
unisolate the page in the balloon driver while keeping it marked as being
isolated in migration core.
This was found by code inspection.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD
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-2025-68248 has been found in Linux kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Linux kernel CVE-2025-68248" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2025-68248 (Linux kernel)
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.
A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Linux kernel.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Linux kernel.
Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Audit SBOM/dependencies to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
Audit SBOM/dependencies for affected components.資産台帳・SBOM・依存マニフェストで Linux kernel を使っているサービスとバージョンを洗い出す。
-
2Post-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
Fix status by distribution
Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE
- BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-68248 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.18.35-r1
- Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68248 linux-hwe-edge
References
- advisory github.com
- advisory nvd.nist.gov
- package git.kernel.org
- web git.kernel.org
- web git.kernel.org