CVE-2025-38434

Revert "riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()"

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Jul 25, 2025
Updated
Aug 5, 2026
Reserved
Apr 16, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

Revert "riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()"

This reverts commit ad5643cf2f69 ("riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()").

This commit changes TASK_SIZE_MAX to be LONG_MAX to optimize access_ok(), because the previous TASK_SIZE_MAX (default to TASK_SIZE) requires some computation.

The reasoning was that all user addresses are less than LONG_MAX, and all kernel addresses are greater than LONG_MAX. Therefore access_ok() can filter kernel addresses.

Addresses between TASK_SIZE and LONG_MAX are not valid user addresses, but access_ok() let them pass. That was thought to be okay, because they are not valid addresses at hardware level.

Unfortunately, one case is missed: get_user_pages_fast() happily accepts addresses between TASK_SIZE and LONG_MAX. futex(), for instance, uses get_user_pages_fast(). This causes the problem reported by Robert [1].

Therefore, revert this commit. TASK_SIZE_MAX is changed to the default: TASK_SIZE.

This unfortunately reduces performance, because TASK_SIZE is more expensive to compute compared to LONG_MAX. But correctness first, we can think about optimization later, if required.

Scores

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

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • ad5643cf2f699989daa85d909403febd6712fccb to before fe30c30bf3bb68d4a4d8c7c814769857b5c973e6Affected
  • ad5643cf2f699989daa85d909403febd6712fccb to before f8b1898748dfeb4f9b67b6a6d661f354b9de3523Affected
  • ad5643cf2f699989daa85d909403febd6712fccb to before 890ba5be6335dbbbc99af14ea007befb5f83f174Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.10Affected
  • before 6.10Not affected
  • 6.12.36 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.15.5 through 6.15.*Not affected
  • 6.16 and laterNot affected

References

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