Use After Free in Linux

CVE-2025-21979

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: cancel wiphy_work before freeing wiphy A wiphy_work can be queued from the moment the wiphy is allocated and initialized (i.e. wiphy_new_nm). When a wiphy_work is queued, the rdev::wiphy_work is getting queued. If wiphy_free is called before the rdev::wiphy_work had a chance to run, the wiphy memory will be freed, and then when it eventally gets to run it'll use invalid memory. Fix this by canceling the work before freeing the wiphy.

Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (8.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 8.9% 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-2025-21979: 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 6.13.8, 6.12.20, ddb1bfbf4ab5c753954d0cd728253b642934a9f2
  • Linux Kernel — versions 6.14

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-21979?
CVE-2025-21979 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Use After Free. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2025-04-01.
How severe is CVE-2025-21979?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-21979 known to be exploited?
2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.