CVE-2025-68341: veth: reduce XDP no_direct return section to fix race

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-68341 is a critical (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.44% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 38.2% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 23-12-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: veth: reduce XDP no_direct return section to fix race As explain in commit fa349e396e48 ("veth: Fix race with AF_XDP exposing old or uninitialized descriptors") for veth there is a chance after napi_complete_done() that another CPU can manage start another NAPI instance running veth_pool(). For NAPI this is correctly handled as the napi_schedule_prep() check will prevent multiple instances from getting scheduled, but for the remaining code in veth_pool() this can run concurrent with the newly started NAPI instance. The problem/race is that xdp_clear_return_frame_no_direct() isn't designed to be nested. Prior to commit 401cb7dae813 ("net: Reference bpf_redirect_info via task_struct on PREEMPT_RT.") the temporary BPF net context bpf_redirect_info was stored per CPU, where this wasn't an issue. Since this commit the BPF context is stored in 'current' task_struct. When running veth in threaded-NAPI mode, then the kthread becomes the storage area. Now a race exists between two concurrent veth_pool() function calls one exiting NAPI and one running new NAPI, both using the same BPF net context. Race is when another CPU gets within the xdp_set_return_frame_no_direct() section before exiting veth_pool() calls the clear-function xdp_clear_return_frame_no_direct().

No weakness data has been published for this record.