CVE-2025-21991

x86/microcode/AMD: Fix out-of-bounds on systems with CPU-less NUMA nodes

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Apr 2, 2025
Updated
May 23, 2026
Reserved
Dec 29, 2024

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

x86/microcode/AMD: Fix out-of-bounds on systems with CPU-less NUMA nodes

Currently, load_microcode_amd() iterates over all NUMA nodes, retrieves their CPU masks and unconditionally accesses per-CPU data for the first CPU of each mask.

According to Documentation/admin-guide/mm/numaperf.rst:

"Some memory may share the same node as a CPU, and others are provided as memory only nodes."

Therefore, some node CPU masks may be empty and wouldn't have a "first CPU".

On a machine with far memory (and therefore CPU-less NUMA nodes): - cpumask_of_node(nid) is 0 - cpumask_first(0) is CONFIG_NR_CPUS - cpu_data(CONFIG_NR_CPUS) accesses the cpu_info per-CPU array at an index that is 1 out of bounds

This does not have any security implications since flashing microcode is a privileged operation but I believe this has reliability implications by potentially corrupting memory while flashing a microcode update.

When booting with CONFIG_UBSAN_BOUNDS=y on an AMD machine that flashes a microcode update. I get the following splat:

UBSAN: array-index-out-of-bounds in arch/x86/kernel/cpu/microcode/amd.c:X:Y index 512 is out of range for type 'unsigned long[512]' [...] Call Trace: dump_stack __ubsan_handle_out_of_bounds load_microcode_amd request_microcode_amd reload_store kernfs_fop_write_iter vfs_write ksys_write do_syscall_64 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe

Change the loop to go over only NUMA nodes which have CPUs before determining whether the first CPU on the respective node needs microcode update.

[ bp: Massage commit message, fix typo. ]

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCISA-ADP

Weaknesses

  • CWE-129 Improper Validation of Array Index

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 979e197968a1e8f09bf0d706801dba4432f85ab3 to before d509c4731090ebd9bbdb72c70a2d70003ae81f4fAffected
  • 44a44b57e88f311c1415be1f567c50050913c149 to before 985a536e04bbfffb1770df43c6470f635a6b1073Affected
  • be2710deaed3ab1402379a2ede30a3754fe6767a to before 18b5d857c6496b78ead2fd10001b81ae32d30cacAffected
  • d576547f489c935b9897d4acf8beee3325dea8a5 to before ec52240622c4d218d0240079b7c1d3ec2328a9f4Affected
  • 7ff6edf4fef38ab404ee7861f257e28eaaeed35f to before e686349cc19e800dac8971929089ba5ff59abfb0Affected
  • 7ff6edf4fef38ab404ee7861f257e28eaaeed35f to before 488ffc0cac38f203979f83634236ee53251ce593Affected
  • 7ff6edf4fef38ab404ee7861f257e28eaaeed35f to before 5ac295dfccb5b015493f86694fa13a0dde4d3665Affected
  • 7ff6edf4fef38ab404ee7861f257e28eaaeed35f to before e3e89178a9f4a80092578af3ff3c8478f9187d59Affected
  • d6353e2fc12c5b8f00f86efa30ed73d2da2f77beAffected
  • 1b1e0eb1d2971a686b9f7bdc146115bcefcbb960Affected
  • eaf5dea1eb8c2928554b3ca717575cbe232b843cAffected
  • 5.4.235 to before 5.4.292Affected
  • 5.10.173 to before 5.10.236Affected
  • 5.15.99 to before 5.15.180Affected
  • 6.1.16 to before 6.1.132Affected
  • 4.14.308 to before 4.15Affected
  • 4.19.276 to before 4.20Affected
  • 6.2.3 to before 6.3Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.3Affected
  • before 6.3Not affected
  • 5.4.292 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.10.236 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.180 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.132 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.84 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.20 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.13.8 through 6.13.*Not affected
  • 6.14 and laterNot affected

References

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