CVE-2025-21714: linux Use After Free

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-21714 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9.2% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 27-02-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/mlx5: Fix implicit ODP use after free Prevent double queueing of implicit ODP mr destroy work by using __xa_cmpxchg() to make sure this is the only time we are destroying this specific mr. Without this change, we could try to invalidate this mr twice, which in turn could result in queuing a MR work destroy twice, and eventually the second work could execute after the MR was freed due to the first work, causing a user after free and trace below. refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 12178 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0x12b/0x130 Modules linked in: bonding ib_ipoib vfio_pci ip_gre geneve nf_tables ip6_gre gre ip6_tunnel tunnel6 ipip tunnel4 ib_umad rdma_ucm mlx5_vfio_pci vfio_pci_core vfio_iommu_type1 mlx5_ib vfio ib_uverbs mlx5_core iptable_raw openvswitch nsh rpcrdma ib_iser libiscsi scsi_transport_iscsi rdma_cm iw_cm ib_cm ib_core xt_conntrack xt_MASQUERADE nf_conntrack_netlink nfnetlink xt_addrtype iptable_nat nf_nat br_netfilter rpcsec_gss_krb5 auth_rpcgss oid_registry overlay zram zsmalloc fuse [last unloaded: ib_uverbs] CPU: 2 PID: 12178 Comm: kworker/u20:5 Not tainted 6.5.0-rc1_net_next_mlx5_58c644e #1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Workqueue: events_unbound free_implicit_child_mr_work [mlx5_ib] RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0x12b/0x130 Code: 48 c7 c7 38 95 2a 82 c6 05 bc c6 fe 00 01 e8 0c 66 aa ff 0f 0b 5b c3 48 c7 c7 e0 94 2a 82 c6 05 a7 c6 fe 00 01 e8 f5 65 aa ff <0f> 0b 5b c3 90 8b 07 3d 00 00 00 c0 74 12 83 f8 01 74 13 8d 50 ff RSP: 0018:ffff8881008e3e40 EFLAGS: 00010286 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000027 RDX: ffff88852c91b5c8 RSI: 0000000000000001 RDI: ffff88852c91b5c0 RBP: ffff8881dacd4e00 R08: 00000000ffffffff R09: 0000000000000019 R10: 000000000000072e R11: 0000000063666572 R12: ffff88812bfd9e00 R13: ffff8881c792d200 R14: ffff88810011c005 R15: ffff8881002099c0 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88852c900000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f5694b5e000 CR3: 00000001153f6003 CR4: 0000000000370ea0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> ? refcount_warn_saturate+0x12b/0x130 free_implicit_child_mr_work+0x180/0x1b0 [mlx5_ib] process_one_work+0x1cc/0x3c0 worker_thread+0x218/0x3c0 kthread+0xc6/0xf0 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 </TASK>

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.