CVE-2025-38500: kernel: xfrm: interface: fix use-after-free after changing collect_md xfrm interface
Component: kernel
Severity: Moderate
CWE: CWE-825 (Expired Pointer Dereference)
CVSS v3: 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
Public date: 2025-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

xfrm: interface: fix use-after-free after changing collect_md xfrm interface

collect_md property on xfrm interfaces can only be set on device creation,
thus xfrmi_changelink() should fail when called on such interfaces.

The check to enforce this was done only in the case where the xi was
returned from xfrmi_locate() which doesn't look for the collect_md
interface, and thus the validation was never reached.

Calling changelink would thus errornously place the special interface xi
in the xfrmi_net->xfrmi hash, but since it also exists in the
xfrmi_net->collect_md_xfrmi pointer it would lead to a double free when
the net namespace was taken down [1].

Change the check to use the xi from netdev_priv which is available earlier
in the function to prevent changes in xfrm collect_md interfaces.

[1] resulting oops:
[    8.516540] kernel BUG at net/core/dev.c:12029!
[    8.516552] Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
[    8.516559] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 12 Comm: kworker/u80:0 Not tainted 6.15.0-virtme #5 PREEMPT(voluntary)
[    8.516565] Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014
[    8.516569] Workqueue: netns cleanup_net
[    8.516579] RIP: 0010:unregister_netdevice_many_notify+0x101/0xab0
[    8.516590] Code: 90 0f 0b 90 48 8b b0 78 01 00 00 48 8b 90 80 01 00 00 48 89 56 08 48 89 32 4c 89 80 78 01 00 00 48 89 b8 80 01 00 00 eb ac 90 <0f> 0b 48 8b 45 00 4c 8d a0 88 fe ff ff 48 39 c5 74 5c 41 80 bc 24
[    8.516593] RSP: 0018:ffffa93b8006bd30 EFLAGS: 00010206
[    8.516598] RAX: ffff98fe4226e000 RBX: ffffa93b8006bd58 RCX: ffffa93b8006bc60
[    8.516601] RDX: 0000000000000004 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: dead000000000122
[    8.516603] RBP: ffffa93b8006bdd8 R08: dead000000000100 R09: ffff98fe4133c100
[    8.516605] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 00000000000003d2 R12: ffffa93b8006be00
[    8.516608] R13: ffffffff96c1a510 R14: ffffffff96c1a510 R15: ffffa93b8006be00
[    8.516615] FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff98fee73b7000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[    8.516619] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[    8.516622] CR2: 00007fcd2abd0700 CR3: 000000003aa40000 CR4: 0000000000752ef0
[    8.516625] PKRU: 55555554
[    8.516627] Call Trace:
[    8.516632]  <TASK>
[    8.516635]  ? rtnl_is_locked+0x15/0x20
[    8.516641]  ? unregister_netdevice_queue+0x29/0xf0
[    8.516650]  ops_undo_list+0x1f2/0x220
[    8.516659]  cleanup_net+0x1ad/0x2e0
[    8.516664]  process_one_work+0x160/0x380
[    8.516673]  worker_thread+0x2aa/0x3c0
[    8.516679]  ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10
[    8.516686]  kthread+0xfb/0x200
[    8.516690]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[    8.516693]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[    8.516697]  ret_from_fork+0x82/0xf0
[    8.516705]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[    8.516709]  ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
[    8.516718]  </TASK>

Statement: A logic error in xfrmi_changelink() allowed the special collect_md xfrm interface to be (re)added to the regular hash, causing it to be tracked twice and freed twice when the net namespace is destroyed. This results in a use-after-free/double-free and a kernel BUG in unregister_netdevice_many_notify(), i.e., a DoS. Exploitation requires CAP_NET_ADMIN to modify xfrm interfaces.

Affected upstream versions: 6.1
Fixed upstream versions: 0, 6.1.148, 6.12.41, 6.15.9, 6.16, 6.6.101
Upstream repository: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Upstream fix commit: a8d4748b954584ab7bd800f1a4e46d5b0eeb5ce4