Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2025-21872

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: efi: Don't map the entire mokvar table to determine its size Currently, when validating the mokvar table, we (re)map the entire table on each iteration of the loop, adding space as we discover new entries. If the table grows over a certain size, this fails due to limitations of early_memmap(), and we get a failure and traceback: ------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 0 at mm/early_ioremap.c:139 __early_ioremap+0xef/0x220 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ? __early_ioremap+0xef/0x220 ? __warn.cold+0x93/0xfa ? __early_ioremap+0xef/0x220 ? report_bug+0xff/0x140 ? early_fixup_exception+0x5d/0xb0 ? early_idt_handler_common+0x2f/0x3a ? __early_ioremap+0xef/0x220 ? efi_mokvar_table_init+0xce/0x1d0 ? setup_arch+0x864/0xc10 ? start_kernel+0x6b/0xa10 ? x86_64_start_reservations+0x24/0x30 ? x86_64_start_kernel+0xed/0xf0 ? common_startup_64+0x13e/0x141 </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- mokvar: Failed to map EFI MOKvar config table pa=0x7c4c3000, size=265187. Mapping the entire structure isn't actually necessary, as we don't ever need more than one entry header mapped at once. Changes efi_mokvar_table_init() to only map each entry header, not the entire table, when determining the table size. Since we're not mapping any data past the variable name, it also changes the code to enforce that each variable name is NUL terminated, rather than attempting to verify it in place.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (9.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 9.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2025-21872: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 58c909022a5a56cd1d9e89c8c5461fd1f6a27bb5, 5.10, 0
  • Linux Kernel — versions 6.14

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-21872?
CVE-2025-21872 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-03-27.
How severe is CVE-2025-21872?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-21872 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.