CVE-2025-40190

CVE Details

Release Date:	2025-11-12
Impact:	Moderate	What is this?

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: guard against EA inode refcount underflow in xattr update syzkaller found a path where ext4_xattr_inode_update_ref() reads an EA inode refcount that is already <= 0 and then applies ref_change (often -1). That lets the refcount underflow and we proceed with a bogus value, triggering errors like: EXT4-fs error: EA inode ref underflow: ref_count=-1 ref_change=-1 EXT4-fs warning: ea_inode dec ref err=-117 Make the invariant explicit: if the current refcount is non-positive, treat this as on-disk corruption, emit ext4_error_inode(), and fail the operation with -EFSCORRUPTED instead of updating the refcount. Delete the WARN_ONCE() as negative refcounts are now impossible; keep error reporting in ext4_error_inode(). This prevents the underflow and the follow-on orphan/cleanup churn.

See more information about CVE-2025-40190 from MITRE CVE dictionary and NIST NVD

NOTE: The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 metrics

Base Score:	6.1
Vector String:	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H
Version:	3.1
Attack Vector:	Local
Attack Complexity:	Low
Privileges Required:	Low
User Interaction:	None
Scope:	Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact:	Low
Integrity Impact:	None
Availability Impact:	High

Errata information

Platform	Errata	Release Date
Oracle Linux version 7 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2025-28049	2025-12-12
Oracle Linux version 8 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2025-28048	2025-12-12
Oracle Linux version 8 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2025-28049	2025-12-12
Oracle Linux version 9 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2025-28048	2025-12-12