CVE-2025-40272

mm/secretmem: fix use-after-free race in fault handler

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Dec 6, 2025
Updated
Oct 15, 2026
Reserved
Apr 16, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

mm/secretmem: fix use-after-free race in fault handler

When a page fault occurs in a secret memory file created with `memfd_secret(2)`, the kernel will allocate a new folio for it, mark the underlying page as not-present in the direct map, and add it to the file mapping.

If two tasks cause a fault in the same page concurrently, both could end up allocating a folio and removing the page from the direct map, but only one would succeed in adding the folio to the file mapping. The task that failed undoes the effects of its attempt by (a) freeing the folio again and (b) putting the page back into the direct map. However, by doing these two operations in this order, the page becomes available to the allocator again before it is placed back in the direct mapping.

If another task attempts to allocate the page between (a) and (b), and the kernel tries to access it via the direct map, it would result in a supervisor not-present page fault.

Fix the ordering to restore the direct map before the folio is freed.

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
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before bb1c19636aedae39360e6fdbcaef4f2bcff25785Affected
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before 1e4643d6628edf9c0047b1f8f5bc574665025acbAffected
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before 42d486d35a4143cc37fc72ee66edc99d942dd367Affected
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before 52f2d5cf33de9a8f5e72bbb0ed38282ae0bc4649Affected
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before 4444767e625da46009fc94a453fd1967b80ba047Affected
  • 1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 to before 6f86d0534fddfbd08687fa0f01479d4226bc3c3dAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.14Affected
  • before 5.14Not affected
  • 5.15.197 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.159 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.117 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.59 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.17.9 through 6.17.*Not affected
  • 6.18 and laterNot affected

References

Every record here comes from the CVE Program’s CVE List. © 1999–2026 The MITRE Corporation. CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. The records are reproduced under the CVE Program terms of use.