Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: xfrm: unexport __init-annotated xfrm4_protocol_init() EXPORT_SYMBOL and __init is a bad combination because the .init.text section is freed up after the initialization. Hence, modules cannot use symbols annotated __init. The access to a freed symbol may end up with kernel panic. modpost used to detect it, but it has been broken for a decade. Recently, I fixed modpost so it started to warn it again, then this showed up in linux-next builds. There are two ways to fix it: - Remove __init - Remove EXPORT_SYMBOL I chose the latter for this case because the only in-tree call-site, net/ipv4/xfrm4_policy.c is never compiled as modular. (CONFIG_XFRM is boolean)

Severity MEDIUM

CVSS Score 5.5

CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWE N/A

Public Exploit ✅ No

Source NVD

Published 2025-02-26

Updated 2026-06-08

Modified 2025-09-22

Fix URL https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2b253fbc9f7b5db18d716436bdcf8ecef09fd63d

Software	From version	Fixed in
linux-kernel	—	—