CVE Catalog

CVE-2025-40024

HighCVSS 7.8
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.14%

4th percentile - higher than 4% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the vhost subsystem lacks a reference to the task_struct. A task may exit early, and an attempt to wake it via vhost_task_wake() could access freed memory.

Risk Assessment

This could lead to a use-after-free, potentially causing system crashes or enabling privilege escalation.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that acquires a reference on task_struct during thread creation and releases it when vhost_task is removed.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vhost: Take a reference on the task in struct vhost_task. vhost_task_create() creates a task and keeps a reference to its task_struct. That task may exit early via a signal and its task_struct will be released. A pending vhost_task_wake() will then attempt to wake the task and access a task_struct which is no longer there. Acquire a reference on the task_struct while creating the thread and release the reference while the struct vhost_task itself is removed. If the task exits early due to a signal, then the vhost_task_wake() will still access a valid task_struct. The wake is safe and will be skipped in this case.

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