CVE-2025-40214

CVE Details

Release Date:	2025-12-04
Impact:	Important	What is this?

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Initialise scc_index in unix_add_edge(). Quang Le reported that the AF_UNIX GC could garbage-collect a receive queue of an alive in-flight socket, with a nice repro. The repro consists of three stages. 1) 1-a. Create a single cyclic reference with many sockets 1-b. close() all sockets 1-c. Trigger GC 2) 2-a. Pass sk-A to an embryo sk-B 2-b. Pass sk-X to sk-X 2-c. Trigger GC 3) 3-a. accept() the embryo sk-B 3-b. Pass sk-B to sk-C 3-c. close() the in-flight sk-A 3-d. Trigger GC As of 2-c, sk-A and sk-X are linked to unix_unvisited_vertices, and unix_walk_scc() groups them into two different SCCs: unix_sk(sk-A)->vertex->scc_index = 2 (UNIX_VERTEX_INDEX_START) unix_sk(sk-X)->vertex->scc_index = 3 Once GC completes, unix_graph_grouped is set to true. Also, unix_graph_maybe_cyclic is set to true due to sk-X's cyclic self-reference, which makes close() trigger GC. At 3-b, unix_add_edge() allocates unix_sk(sk-B)->vertex and links it to unix_unvisited_vertices. unix_update_graph() is called at 3-a. and 3-b., but neither unix_graph_grouped nor unix_graph_maybe_cyclic is changed because both sk-B's listener and sk-C are not in-flight. 3-c decrements sk-A's file refcnt to 1. Since unix_graph_grouped is true at 3-d, unix_walk_scc_fast() is finally called and iterates 3 sockets sk-A, sk-B, and sk-X: sk-A -> sk-B (-> sk-C) sk-X -> sk-X This is totally fine. All of them are not yet close()d and should be grouped into different SCCs. However, unix_vertex_dead() misjudges that sk-A and sk-B are in the same SCC and sk-A is dead. unix_sk(sk-A)->scc_index == unix_sk(sk-B)->scc_index <-- Wrong! && sk-A's file refcnt == unix_sk(sk-A)->vertex->out_degree ^-- 1 in-flight count for sk-B -> sk-A is dead !? The problem is that unix_add_edge() does not initialise scc_index. Stage 1) is used for heap spraying, making a newly allocated vertex have vertex->scc_index == 2 (UNIX_VERTEX_INDEX_START) set by unix_walk_scc() at 1-c. Let's track the max SCC index from the previous unix_walk_scc() call and assign the max + 1 to a new vertex's scc_index. This way, we can continue to avoid Tarjan's algorithm while preventing misjudgments.

See more information about CVE-2025-40214 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:	7.0
Vector String:	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Version:	3.1
Attack Vector:	Local
Attack Complexity:	High
Privileges Required:	Low
User Interaction:	None
Scope:	Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact:	High
Integrity Impact:	High
Availability Impact:	High

Errata information

Platform	Errata	Release Date
Oracle Linux version 10 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2026-50006	2026-01-13
Oracle Linux version 9 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2026-50006	2026-01-13