Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-23143

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 2.6.20 – 5.4.300

Published
01 May 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 9th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-23143 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 9th 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 CM-7 (Least Functionality) and AC-6 (Least Privilege) — 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: net: Fix null-ptr-deref by sock_lock_init_class_and_name() and rmmod. When I ran the repro [0] and waited a few seconds, I observed two LOCKDEP splats: a warning immediately followed by a null-ptr-deref.…

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[1] Reproduction Steps: 1) Mount CIFS 2) Add an iptables rule to drop incoming FIN packets for CIFS 3) Unmount CIFS 4) Unload the CIFS module 5) Remove the iptables rule At step 3), the CIFS module calls sock_release() for the underlying TCP socket, and it returns quickly. However, the socket remains in FIN_WAIT_1 because incoming FIN packets are dropped. At this point, the module's refcnt is 0 while the socket is still alive, so the following rmmod command succeeds. # ss -tan State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port FIN-WAIT-1 0 477 10.0.2.15:51062 10.0.0.137:445 # lsmod | grep cifs cifs 1159168 0 This highlights a discrepancy between the lifetime of the CIFS module and the underlying TCP socket. Even after CIFS calls sock_release() and it returns, the TCP socket does not die immediately in order to close the connection gracefully. While this is generally fine, it causes an issue with LOCKDEP because CIFS assigns a different lock class to the TCP socket's sk->sk_lock using sock_lock_init_class_and_name(). Once an incoming packet is processed for the socket or a timer fires, sk->sk_lock is acquired. Then, LOCKDEP checks the lock context in check_wait_context(), where hlock_class() is called to retrieve the lock class. However, since the module has already been unloaded, hlock_class() logs a warning and returns NULL, triggering the null-ptr-deref. If LOCKDEP is enabled, we must ensure that a module calling sock_lock_init_class_and_name() (CIFS, NFS, etc) cannot be unloaded while such a socket is still alive to prevent this issue. Let's hold the module reference in sock_lock_init_class_and_name() and release it when the socket is freed in sk_prot_free(). Note that sock_lock_init() clears sk->sk_owner for svc_create_socket() that calls sock_lock_init_class_and_name() for a listening socket, which clones a socket by sk_clone_lock() without GFP_ZERO. [0]: CIFS_SERVER="10.0.0.137" CIFS_PATH="//${CIFS_SERVER}/Users/Administrator/Desktop/CIFS_TEST" DEV="enp0s3" CRED="/root/WindowsCredential.txt" MNT=$(mktemp -d /tmp/XXXXXX) mount -t cifs ${CIFS_PATH} ${MNT} -o vers=3.0,credentials=${CRED},cache=none,echo_interval=1 iptables -A INPUT -s ${CIFS_SERVER} -j DROP for i in $(seq 10); do umount ${MNT} rmmod cifs sleep 1 done rm -r ${MNT} iptables -D INPUT -s ${CIFS_SERVER} -j DROP [1]: DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(1) WARNING: CPU: 10 PID: 0 at kernel/locking/lockdep.c:234 hlock_class (kernel/locking/lockdep.c:234 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:223) Modules linked in: cifs_arc4 nls_ucs2_utils cifs_md4 [last unloaded: cifs] CPU: 10 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/10 Not tainted 6.14.0 #36 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.0-0-gd239552ce722-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:hlock_class (kernel/locking/lockdep.c:234 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:223) ... Call Trace: <IRQ> __lock_acquire (kernel/locking/lockdep.c:4853 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5178) lock_acquire (kernel/locking/lockdep.c:469 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5853 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5816) _raw_spin_lock_nested (kernel/locking/spinlock.c:379) tcp_v4_rcv (./include/linux/skbuff.h:1678 ./include/net/tcp.h:2547 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:2350) ... BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000c4 PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 10 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/10 Tainted: G W 6.14.0 #36 Tainted: [W]=WARN Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.0-0-gd239552ce722-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire (kernel/ ---truncated---

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.15 · 2.6.20 — 5.4.300 · 5.5 — 5.10.245 · 5.11 — 5.15.194
debian
debian linux
11.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • CM-7 Least Functionality
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)
  • SI-4 System Monitoring
Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Disables or restricts loading of the CIFS kernel module (and similar net modules) so the sock_lock_init_class_and_name lifetime mismatch with rmmod cannot be triggered.

prevent

Limits which users or processes may execute rmmod or manage CIFS mounts/sockets, reducing the chance an unprivileged attacker can perform the FIN-drop + unload sequence.

detect

Monitors for anomalous socket states (FIN_WAIT_1 lingering after sock_release) and module reference-count drops that precede the null-ptr-deref.

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