Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-37859

DoS in Linux Kernel 5.3.18 – 5.4

Published
09 May 2025
Modified
17 June 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 0.0029 22th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-37859 is a medium-severity Infinite Loop (CWE-835) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 22th 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 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: page_pool: avoid infinite loop to schedule delayed worker We noticed the kworker in page_pool_release_retry() was waken up repeatedly and infinitely in production because of the buggy driver causing the inflight…

more

less than 0 and warning us in page_pool_inflight()[1]. Since the inflight value goes negative, it means we should not expect the whole page_pool to get back to work normally. This patch mitigates the adverse effect by not rescheduling the kworker when detecting the inflight negative in page_pool_release_retry(). [1] [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Negative(-51446) inflight packet-pages ... [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Call Trace: [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] page_pool_release_retry+0x23/0x70 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] process_one_work+0x1b1/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] worker_thread+0x37/0x3a0 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] kthread+0x11a/0x140 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? process_one_work+0x370/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? __kthread_cancel_work+0x40/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ret_from_fork+0x35/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ---[ end trace ebffe800f33e7e34 ]--- Note: before this patch, the above calltrace would flood the dmesg due to repeated reschedule of release_dw kworker.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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CVE-2023-52635Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38344Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39756Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26839Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-36946Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38300Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
5.3.18 — 5.4 · 5.4.5 — 5.4.293 · 5.5 — 5.10.237
debian
debian linux
11.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover unreachable loop exit conditions through static analysis, fuzzing, or execution tracing.

Flaw remediation processes identify and correct infinite-loop defects reported from testing or operations.

Requiring documented development processes and secure coding standards reduces introduction of loops whose termination conditions are unreachable.

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 (reviews, testing, static analysis) directly prevent introduction of infinite-loop defects.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Static analysis and vuln scanning during asset assessment can detect unreachable loop exits.

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 uncover infinite-loop conditions before release.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates practices that can detect and prevent infinite-loop defects.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify loop-termination rules, indirectly reducing the weakness.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly address loop termination and prevent infinite loops.

none

Secure architecture principles encourage designs that avoid unreachable exit conditions.

none

Change management can require review of loop logic when code is modified.

References