Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-21892

Race Condition in Linux Kernel 5.19.10 – 6.12.18

Published
27 March 2025
Modified
29 October 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0013 3th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21892 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 3th 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 SC-39 (Process Isolation) and SC-4 (Information in Shared System Resources) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/mlx5: Fix the recovery flow of the UMR QP This patch addresses an issue in the recovery flow of the UMR QP, ensuring tasks do not get stuck, as highlighted…

more

by the call trace [1]. During recovery, before transitioning the QP to the RESET state, the software must wait for all outstanding WRs to complete. Failing to do so can cause the firmware to skip sending some flushed CQEs with errors and simply discard them upon the RESET, as per the IB specification. This race condition can result in lost CQEs and tasks becoming stuck. To resolve this, the patch sends a final WR which serves only as a barrier before moving the QP state to RESET. Once a CQE is received for that final WR, it guarantees that no outstanding WRs remain, making it safe to transition the QP to RESET and subsequently back to RTS, restoring proper functionality. Note: For the barrier WR, we simply reuse the failed and ready WR. Since the QP is in an error state, it will only receive IB_WC_WR_FLUSH_ERR. However, as it serves only as a barrier we don't care about its status. [1] INFO: task rdma_resource_l:1922 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Tainted: G W 6.12.0-rc7+ #1626 "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. task:rdma_resource_l state:D stack:0 pid:1922 tgid:1922 ppid:1369 flags:0x00004004 Call Trace: <TASK> __schedule+0x420/0xd30 schedule+0x47/0x130 schedule_timeout+0x280/0x300 ? mark_held_locks+0x48/0x80 ? lockdep_hardirqs_on_prepare+0xe5/0x1a0 wait_for_completion+0x75/0x130 mlx5r_umr_post_send_wait+0x3c2/0x5b0 [mlx5_ib] ? __pfx_mlx5r_umr_done+0x10/0x10 [mlx5_ib] mlx5r_umr_revoke_mr+0x93/0xc0 [mlx5_ib] __mlx5_ib_dereg_mr+0x299/0x520 [mlx5_ib] ? _raw_spin_unlock_irq+0x24/0x40 ? wait_for_completion+0xfe/0x130 ? rdma_restrack_put+0x63/0xe0 [ib_core] ib_dereg_mr_user+0x5f/0x120 [ib_core] ? lock_release+0xc6/0x280 destroy_hw_idr_uobject+0x1d/0x60 [ib_uverbs] uverbs_destroy_uobject+0x58/0x1d0 [ib_uverbs] uobj_destroy+0x3f/0x70 [ib_uverbs] ib_uverbs_cmd_verbs+0x3e4/0xbb0 [ib_uverbs] ? __pfx_uverbs_destroy_def_handler+0x10/0x10 [ib_uverbs] ? __lock_acquire+0x64e/0x2080 ? mark_held_locks+0x48/0x80 ? find_held_lock+0x2d/0xa0 ? lock_acquire+0xc1/0x2f0 ? ib_uverbs_ioctl+0xcb/0x170 [ib_uverbs] ? __fget_files+0xc3/0x1b0 ib_uverbs_ioctl+0xe7/0x170 [ib_uverbs] ? ib_uverbs_ioctl+0xcb/0x170 [ib_uverbs] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x1b0/0xa70 do_syscall_64+0x6b/0x140 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7f99c918b17b RSP: 002b:00007ffc766d0468 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007ffc766d0578 RCX: 00007f99c918b17b RDX: 00007ffc766d0560 RSI: 00000000c0181b01 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007ffc766d0540 R08: 00007f99c8f99010 R09: 000000000000bd7e R10: 00007f99c94c1c70 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007ffc766d0530 R13: 000000000000001c R14: 0000000040246a80 R15: 0000000000000000 </TASK>

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.14 · 5.19.10 — 6.12.18 · 6.13 — 6.13.6

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.4.2
  • V10.4.5
  • V15.1.3
  • V15.4.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Maintaining separate execution domains for each process structurally eliminates unintended concurrent access to the same shared resources.

Preventing unintended information transfer through shared system resources directly addresses the improper concurrent modification that defines a race condition.

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require proper synchronization primitives and concurrency testing that prevent race conditions.

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.

finds

Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates concurrency controls and synchronization primitives that directly prevent race conditions.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify thread-safety and locking rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.

none

Change management reduces introduction of concurrency bugs during updates, yet does not address the weakness itself.

References