CVE Catalog

CVE-2025-21889

HighCVSS 7.8
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.19%

9th percentile - higher than 9% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel's perf subsystem, a missing RCU read lock protection was found in the perf_iterate_ctx() function during list traversal. This triggers lockdep warnings and potential synchronization issues when running perf probe with unshare(1).

Risk Assessment

This could lead to incorrect behavior of profiling tools (perf) and potential synchronization bugs, hindering system diagnostics.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that adds rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock() pairs in perf_event_exec().

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: perf/core: Add RCU read lock protection to perf_iterate_ctx() The perf_iterate_ctx() function performs RCU list traversal but currently lacks RCU read lock protection. This causes lockdep warnings when running perf probe with unshare(1) under CONFIG_PROVE_RCU_LIST=y: WARNING: suspicious RCU usage kernel/events/core.c:8168 RCU-list traversed in non-reader section!! Call Trace: lockdep_rcu_suspicious ? perf_event_addr_filters_apply perf_iterate_ctx perf_event_exec begin_new_exec ? load_elf_phdrs load_elf_binary ? lock_acquire ? find_held_lock ? bprm_execve bprm_execve do_execveat_common.isra.0 __x64_sys_execve do_syscall_64 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe This protection was previously present but was removed in commit bd2756811766 ("perf: Rewrite core context handling"). Add back the necessary rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock() pair around perf_iterate_ctx() call in perf_event_exec(). [ mingo: Use scoped_guard() as suggested by Peter ]

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS