Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2025-40119

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: fix potential null deref in ext4_mb_init() In ext4_mb_init(), ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy() may be called when sbi->s_mb_avg_fragment_size remains uninitialized (e.g., if groupinfo slab cache allocation fails). Since ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy() lacks null pointer checking, this leads to a null pointer dereference. ================================================================== EXT4-fs: no memory for groupinfo slab cache BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP PTI CPU:2 UID: 0 PID: 87 Comm:mount Not tainted 6.17.0-rc2 #1134 PREEMPT(none) RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x1b/0x40 Call Trace: <TASK> xa_destroy+0x61/0x130 ext4_mb_init+0x483/0x540 __ext4_fill_super+0x116d/0x17b0 ext4_fill_super+0xd3/0x280 get_tree_bdev_flags+0x132/0x1d0 vfs_get_tree+0x29/0xd0 do_new_mount+0x197/0x300 __x64_sys_mount+0x116/0x150 do_syscall_64+0x50/0x1c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e ================================================================== Therefore, add necessary null check to ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy() to prevent this issue. The same fix is also applied to ext4_mb_largest_free_orders_destroy().

Published · last modified .

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (8.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 8.6% 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-2025-40119: 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 d99d714f714c9492dc64d8ab4329b083dbfa9cab, f7eaacbb4e54f8a6c6674c16eff54f703ea63d5e, 6.17

References