🛡️ CVE-2025-40123 on Debian — linux

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Enforce expected_attach_type for tailcall compatibility Yinhao et al. recently reported: Our fuzzer tool discovered an uninitialized pointer issue in the bpf_prog_test_run_xdp() function within the Linux kernel's BPF subsystem. This leads to a NULL pointer dereference when a BPF program attempts to deference the txq member of struct xdp_buff object. The test initializes two programs of BPF_PROG_TYPE_XDP: progA acts as the entry point for bpf_prog_test_run_xdp() and its expected_attach_type can neither be of be BPF_XDP_DEVMAP nor BPF_XDP_CPUMAP. progA calls into a slot of a tailcall map it owns. progB's expected_attach_type must be BPF_XDP_DEVMAP to pass xdp_is_valid_access() validation. The program returns struct xdp_md's egress_ifindex, and the latter is only allowed to be accessed under mentioned expected_attach_type. progB is then inserted into the tailcall which progA calls. The underlying issue goes beyond XDP though. Another example are programs of type BPF_PROG_TYPE_CGROUP_SOCK_ADDR. sock_addr_is_valid_access() as well as sock_addr_func_proto() have different logic depending on the programs' expected_attach_type. Similarly, a program attached to BPF_CGROUP_INET4_GETPEERNAME should not be allowed doing a tailcall into a program which calls bpf_bind() out of BPF which is only enabled for BPF_CGROUP_INET4_CONNECT. In short, specifying expected_attach_type allows to open up additional functionality or restrictions beyond what the basic bpf_prog_type enables. The use of tailcalls must not violate these constraints. Fix it by enforcing expected_attach_type in __bpf_prog_map_compatible(). Note that we only enforce this for tailcall maps, but not for BPF devmaps or cpumaps: There, the programs are invoked through dev_map_bpf_prog_run*() and cpu_map_bpf_prog_run*() which set up a new environment / context and therefore these situations are not prone to this issue.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2025-40123 as tracked by Debian, for the package linux. The fix is available in version 6.17.6-1; earlier versions remain affected.

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

DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40123 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • linux (fixed in 6.17.6-1)
  • linux-6.1 (fixed in 6.1.158-1~deb11u1)

Timeline and source

Published on 12 November 2025 and last revised on 4 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2025-40123 on other distributions

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

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
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 OSV
Published 2025-11-12
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-08-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
linux 6.17.6-1
linux-6.1 6.1.158-1~deb11u1

Similar Threats

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