Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-22015

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 6.1.71 – 6.1.132

Published
08 April 2025
Modified
14 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0019 8th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-22015 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 8th 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 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SC-39 (Process Isolation) — 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: mm/migrate: fix shmem xarray update during migration A shmem folio can be either in page cache or in swap cache, but not at the same time. Namely, once it is…

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in swap cache, folio->mapping should be NULL, and the folio is no longer in a shmem mapping. In __folio_migrate_mapping(), to determine the number of xarray entries to update, folio_test_swapbacked() is used, but that conflates shmem in page cache case and shmem in swap cache case. It leads to xarray multi-index entry corruption, since it turns a sibling entry to a normal entry during xas_store() (see [1] for a userspace reproduction). Fix it by only using folio_test_swapcache() to determine whether xarray is storing swap cache entries or not to choose the right number of xarray entries to update. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/Z8idPCkaJW1IChjT@casper.infradead.org/ Note: In __split_huge_page(), folio_test_anon() && folio_test_swapcache() is used to get swap_cache address space, but that ignores the shmem folio in swap cache case. It could lead to NULL pointer dereferencing when a in-swap-cache shmem folio is split at __xa_store(), since !folio_test_anon() is true and folio->mapping is NULL. But fortunately, its caller split_huge_page_to_list_to_order() bails out early with EBUSY when folio->mapping is NULL. So no need to take care of it here.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2025-22016Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-52893Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-22065Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.14, 6.7 · 6.1.71 — 6.1.132 · 6.6.10 — 6.6.85 · 6.7.1 — 6.12.21

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity
Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces memory protection mechanisms that would block NULL pointer dereference and xarray structure corruption during shmem folio migration.

prevent

Process isolation limits the blast radius of kernel mm/migrate bugs so that folio mapping errors cannot affect unrelated address spaces.

detect

Integrity verification of kernel data structures can detect xarray multi-index entry corruption introduced by the flawed __folio_migrate_mapping logic.

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 (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.

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.

detects

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References