CVE-2025-21893

NameCVE-2025-21893
DescriptionIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: keys: Fix UAF in key_put() Once a key's reference count has been reduced to 0, the garbage collector thread may destroy it at any time and so key_put() is not allowed to touch the key after that point. The most key_put() is normally allowed to do is to touch key_gc_work as that's a static global variable. However, in an effort to speed up the reclamation of quota, this is now done in key_put() once the key's usage is reduced to 0 - but now the code is looking at the key after the deadline, which is forbidden. Fix this by using a flag to indicate that a key can be gc'd now rather than looking at the key's refcount in the garbage collector.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
linux (PTS)bullseye5.10.223-1fixed
bullseye (security)5.10.234-1fixed
bookworm6.1.129-1fixed
bookworm (security)6.1.128-1fixed
sid, trixie6.12.21-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
linuxsourcebullseye(not affected)
linuxsourcebookworm(not affected)
linuxsource(unstable)6.12.21-1

Notes

[bookworm] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
[bullseye] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
https://git.kernel.org/linus/75845c6c1a64483e9985302793dbf0dfa5f71e32 (6.14)

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