Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2025-39961

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/amd/pgtbl: Fix possible race while increase page table level The AMD IOMMU host page table implementation supports dynamic page table levels (up to 6 levels), starting with a 3-level configuration that expands based on IOVA address. The kernel maintains a root pointer and current page table level to enable proper page table walks in alloc_pte()/fetch_pte() operations. The IOMMU IOVA allocator initially starts with 32-bit address and onces its exhuasted it switches to 64-bit address (max address is determined based on IOMMU and device DMA capability). To support larger IOVA, AMD IOMMU driver increases page table level. But in unmap path (iommu_v1_unmap_pages()), fetch_pte() reads pgtable->[root/mode] without lock. So its possible that in exteme corner case, when increase_address_space() is updating pgtable->[root/mode], fetch_pte() reads wrong page table level (pgtable->mode). It does compare the value with level encoded in page table and returns NULL. This will result is iommu_unmap ops to fail and upper layer may retry/log WARN_ON. CPU 0 CPU 1 ------ ------ map pages unmap pages alloc_pte() -> increase_address_space() iommu_v1_unmap_pages() -> fetch_pte() pgtable->root = pte (new root value) READ pgtable->[mode/root] Reads new root, old mode Updates mode (pgtable->mode += 1) Since Page table level updates are infrequent and already synchronized with a spinlock, implement seqcount to enable lock-free read operations on the read path.

Vulnerability class: Race Condition

EPSS: 0.001 (1.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 6.12.49, b15bf74405faa1a65025eb8a6eb337e140e5250a, 6fb92f18555a7b8e085267d513612dc0ff9a5360
  • Linux Linux_kernel — versions 5.3, 6.17

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-39961?
CVE-2025-39961 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (Race Condition). CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2025-10-09.
How severe is CVE-2025-39961?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-39961 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.