NULL pointer dereference in Linux
CVE-2025-21921
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: ethtool: netlink: Allow NULL nlattrs when getting a phy_device ethnl_req_get_phydev() is used to lookup a phy_device, in the case an ethtool netlink command targets a specific phydev within a netdev's topology. It takes as a parameter a const struct nlattr *header that's used for error handling : if (!phydev) { NL_SET_ERR_MSG_ATTR(extack, header, "no phy matching phyindex"); return ERR_PTR(-ENODEV); } In the notify path after a ->set operation however, there's no request attributes available. The typical callsite for the above function looks like: phydev = ethnl_req_get_phydev(req_base, tb[ETHTOOL_A_XXX_HEADER], info->extack); So, when tb is NULL (such as in the ethnl notify path), we have a nice crash. It turns out that there's only the PLCA command that is in that case, as the other phydev-specific commands don't have a notification. This commit fixes the crash by passing the cmd index and the nlattr array separately, allowing NULL-checking it directly inside the helper.
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 (9.3th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 9.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000
Affected products
- Linux — versions c15e065b46dc4e19837275b826c1960d55564abd, 6.12, 0
- Linux Kernel — versions 6.14
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-21921?
- CVE-2025-21921 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-04-01.
- How severe is CVE-2025-21921?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.