CVE-2025-37772: debian debian_linux NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-37772 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in debian debian_linux. EPSS estimates a 0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 01-05-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/cma: Fix workqueue crash in cma_netevent_work_handler struct rdma_cm_id has member "struct work_struct net_work" that is reused for enqueuing cma_netevent_work_handler()s onto cma_wq. Below crash[1] can occur if more than one call to cma_netevent_callback() occurs in quick succession, which further enqueues cma_netevent_work_handler()s for the same rdma_cm_id, overwriting any previously queued work-item(s) that was just scheduled to run i.e. there is no guarantee the queued work item may run between two successive calls to cma_netevent_callback() and the 2nd INIT_WORK would overwrite the 1st work item (for the same rdma_cm_id), despite grabbing id_table_lock during enqueue. Also drgn analysis [2] indicates the work item was likely overwritten. Fix this by moving the INIT_WORK() to __rdma_create_id(), so that it doesn't race with any existing queue_work() or its worker thread. [1] Trimmed crash stack: ============================================= BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000008 kworker/u256:6 ... 6.12.0-0... Workqueue: cma_netevent_work_handler [rdma_cm] (rdma_cm) RIP: 0010:process_one_work+0xba/0x31a Call Trace: worker_thread+0x266/0x3a0 kthread+0xcf/0x100 ret_from_fork+0x31/0x50 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 ============================================= [2] drgn crash analysis: >>> trace = prog.crashed_thread().stack_trace() >>> trace (0) crash_setup_regs (./arch/x86/include/asm/kexec.h:111:15) (1) __crash_kexec (kernel/crash_core.c:122:4) (2) panic (kernel/panic.c:399:3) (3) oops_end (arch/x86/kernel/dumpstack.c:382:3) ... (8) process_one_work (kernel/workqueue.c:3168:2) (9) process_scheduled_works (kernel/workqueue.c:3310:3) (10) worker_thread (kernel/workqueue.c:3391:4) (11) kthread (kernel/kthread.c:389:9) Line workqueue.c:3168 for this kernel version is in process_one_work(): 3168 strscpy(worker->desc, pwq->wq->name, WORKER_DESC_LEN); >>> trace[8]["work"] *(struct work_struct *)0xffff92577d0a21d8 = { .data = (atomic_long_t){ .counter = (s64)536870912, <=== Note }, .entry = (struct list_head){ .next = (struct list_head *)0xffff924d075924c0, .prev = (struct list_head *)0xffff924d075924c0, }, .func = (work_func_t)cma_netevent_work_handler+0x0 = 0xffffffffc2cec280, } Suspicion is that pwq is NULL: >>> trace[8]["pwq"] (struct pool_workqueue *)<absent> In process_one_work(), pwq is assigned from: struct pool_workqueue *pwq = get_work_pwq(work); and get_work_pwq() is: static struct pool_workqueue *get_work_pwq(struct work_struct *work) { unsigned long data = atomic_long_read(&work->data); if (data & WORK_STRUCT_PWQ) return work_struct_pwq(data); else return NULL; } WORK_STRUCT_PWQ is 0x4: >>> print(repr(prog['WORK_STRUCT_PWQ'])) Object(prog, 'enum work_flags', value=4) But work->data is 536870912 which is 0x20000000. So, get_work_pwq() returns NULL and we crash in process_one_work(): 3168 strscpy(worker->desc, pwq->wq->name, WORKER_DESC_LEN); =============================================

• CWE-476NULL Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.