🛡️ CVE-2025-68179 — kernel

🟠 CVSS 7.8 — High ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
7.8
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

s390: Disable ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_HUGETLB_VMEMMAP

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

s390: Disable ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_HUGETLB_VMEMMAP

As reported by Luiz Capitulino enabling HVO on s390 leads to reproducible

crashes. The problem is that kernel page tables are modified without

flushing corresponding TLB entries.

Even if it looks like the empty flush_tlb_all() implementation on s390 is

the problem, it is actually a different problem: on s390 it is not allowed

to replace an active/valid page table entry with another valid page table

entry without the detour over an invalid entry. A direct replacement may

lead to random crashes and/or data corruption.

In order to invalidate an entry special instructions have to be used

(e.g. ipte or idte). Alternatively there are also special instructions

available which allow to replace a valid entry with a different valid

entry (e.g. crdte or cspg).

Given that the HVO code currently does not provide the hooks to allow for

an implementation which is compliant with the s390 architecture

requirements, disable ARCH_WANT_OPTIMIZE_HUGETLB_VMEMMAP again, which is

basically a revert of the original patch which enabled it.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Affected software

CVE-2025-68179 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.13.0 up to 6.17.8)
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 16 December 2025 and last revised on 6 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

CVE-2025-68179 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity High
CVSS Score 7.8
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2025-12-16
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-08-06
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.13.0 6.17.8
unknown — —

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