CVE-2025-21707
Linux Kernel 5.11 – 6.1.129
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2025-21707 is a critical-severity Use of Uninitialized Resource (CWE-908) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked at the 38th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-5243
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mptcp: consolidate suboption status MPTCP maintains the received sub-options status is the bitmask carrying the received suboptions and in several bitfields carrying per suboption additional info. Zeroing the bitmask before…
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parsing is not enough to ensure a consistent status, and the MPTCP code has to additionally clear some bitfiled depending on the actually parsed suboption. The above schema is fragile, and syzbot managed to trigger a path where a relevant bitfield is not cleared/initialized: BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in __mptcp_expand_seq net/mptcp/options.c:1030 [inline] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in mptcp_expand_seq net/mptcp/protocol.h:864 [inline] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in ack_update_msk net/mptcp/options.c:1060 [inline] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in mptcp_incoming_options+0x2036/0x3d30 net/mptcp/options.c:1209 __mptcp_expand_seq net/mptcp/options.c:1030 [inline] mptcp_expand_seq net/mptcp/protocol.h:864 [inline] ack_update_msk net/mptcp/options.c:1060 [inline] mptcp_incoming_options+0x2036/0x3d30 net/mptcp/options.c:1209 tcp_data_queue+0xb4/0x7be0 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c:5233 tcp_rcv_established+0x1061/0x2510 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c:6264 tcp_v4_do_rcv+0x7f3/0x11a0 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:1916 tcp_v4_rcv+0x51df/0x5750 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:2351 ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x2a3/0x13d0 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:205 ip_local_deliver_finish+0x336/0x500 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:233 NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:314 [inline] ip_local_deliver+0x21f/0x490 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:254 dst_input include/net/dst.h:460 [inline] ip_rcv_finish+0x4a2/0x520 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:447 NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:314 [inline] ip_rcv+0xcd/0x380 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:567 __netif_receive_skb_one_core net/core/dev.c:5704 [inline] __netif_receive_skb+0x319/0xa00 net/core/dev.c:5817 process_backlog+0x4ad/0xa50 net/core/dev.c:6149 __napi_poll+0xe7/0x980 net/core/dev.c:6902 napi_poll net/core/dev.c:6971 [inline] net_rx_action+0xa5a/0x19b0 net/core/dev.c:7093 handle_softirqs+0x1a0/0x7c0 kernel/softirq.c:561 __do_softirq+0x14/0x1a kernel/softirq.c:595 do_softirq+0x9a/0x100 kernel/softirq.c:462 __local_bh_enable_ip+0x9f/0xb0 kernel/softirq.c:389 local_bh_enable include/linux/bottom_half.h:33 [inline] rcu_read_unlock_bh include/linux/rcupdate.h:919 [inline] __dev_queue_xmit+0x2758/0x57d0 net/core/dev.c:4493 dev_queue_xmit include/linux/netdevice.h:3168 [inline] neigh_hh_output include/net/neighbour.h:523 [inline] neigh_output include/net/neighbour.h:537 [inline] ip_finish_output2+0x187c/0x1b70 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:236 __ip_finish_output+0x287/0x810 ip_finish_output+0x4b/0x600 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:324 NF_HOOK_COND include/linux/netfilter.h:303 [inline] ip_output+0x15f/0x3f0 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:434 dst_output include/net/dst.h:450 [inline] ip_local_out net/ipv4/ip_output.c:130 [inline] __ip_queue_xmit+0x1f2a/0x20d0 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:536 ip_queue_xmit+0x60/0x80 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:550 __tcp_transmit_skb+0x3cea/0x4900 net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:1468 tcp_transmit_skb net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:1486 [inline] tcp_write_xmit+0x3b90/0x9070 net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:2829 __tcp_push_pending_frames+0xc4/0x380 net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:3012 tcp_send_fin+0x9f6/0xf50 net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:3618 __tcp_close+0x140c/0x1550 net/ipv4/tcp.c:3130 __mptcp_close_ssk+0x74e/0x16f0 net/mptcp/protocol.c:2496 mptcp_close_ssk+0x26b/0x2c0 net/mptcp/protocol.c:2550 mptcp_pm_nl_rm_addr_or_subflow+0x635/0xd10 net/mptcp/pm_netlink.c:889 mptcp_pm_nl_rm_subflow_received net/mptcp/pm_netlink.c:924 [inline] mptcp_pm_flush_addrs_and_subflows net/mptcp/pm_netlink.c:1688 [inline] mptcp_nl_flush_addrs_list net/mptcp/pm_netlink.c:1709 [inline] mptcp_pm_nl_flush_addrs_doit+0xe10/0x1630 net/mptcp/pm_netlink.c:1750 genl_family_rcv_msg_doit net/netlink/genetlink.c:1115 [inline] ---truncated---
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) can find uses of uninitialized resources after they are coded.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate initialization checks and safe patterns that stop the weakness from being introduced.
Engineering principles can require explicit resource initialization before use, structurally avoiding uninitialized access.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC activities such as static analysis and code review directly prevent use of uninitialized resources while also addressing many other weaknesses.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development and acceptance can detect uninitialized resource usage through dynamic analysis and fuzzing.
Secure development life cycle mandates initialization checks and static analysis that can catch uninitialized resource use.
Application security requirements can specify mandatory initialization of variables and resources before use.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles include defensive coding practices that prevent use of uninitialized memory or objects.
Secure coding standards directly require explicit initialization of all variables and resources, substantially mitigating CWE-908.