CVE-2025-68183

ima: don't clear IMA_DIGSIG flag when setting or removing non-IMA xattr

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Dec 16, 2025
Updated
Oct 30, 2026
Reserved
Dec 16, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

ima: don't clear IMA_DIGSIG flag when setting or removing non-IMA xattr

Currently when both IMA and EVM are in fix mode, the IMA signature will be reset to IMA hash if a program first stores IMA signature in security.ima and then writes/removes some other security xattr for the file.

For example, on Fedora, after booting the kernel with "ima_appraise=fix evm=fix ima_policy=appraise_tcb" and installing rpm-plugin-ima, installing/reinstalling a package will not make good reference IMA signature generated. Instead IMA hash is generated,

# getfattr -m - -d -e hex /usr/bin/bash # file: usr/bin/bash security.ima=0x0404...

This happens because when setting security.selinux, the IMA_DIGSIG flag that had been set early was cleared. As a result, IMA hash is generated when the file is closed.

Similarly, IMA signature can be cleared on file close after removing security xattr like security.evm or setting/removing ACL.

Prevent replacing the IMA file signature with a file hash, by preventing the IMA_DIGSIG flag from being reset.

Here's a minimal C reproducer which sets security.selinux as the last step which can also replaced by removing security.evm or setting ACL,

#include <stdio.h> #include <sys/xattr.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <string.h> #include <stdlib.h>

int main() { const char* file_path = "/usr/sbin/test_binary"; const char* hex_string = "030204d33204490066306402304"; int length = strlen(hex_string); char* ima_attr_value; int fd;

fd = open(file_path, O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_EXCL, 0644); if (fd == -1) { perror("Error opening file"); return 1; }

ima_attr_value = (char*)malloc(length / 2 ); for (int i = 0, j = 0; i < length; i += 2, j++) { sscanf(hex_string + i, "%2hhx", &ima_attr_value[j]); }

if (fsetxattr(fd, "security.ima", ima_attr_value, length/2, 0) == -1) { perror("Error setting extended attribute"); close(fd); return 1; }

const char* selinux_value= "system_u:object_r:bin_t:s0"; if (fsetxattr(fd, "security.selinux", selinux_value, strlen(selinux_value), 0) == -1) { perror("Error setting extended attribute"); close(fd); return 1; }

close(fd);

return 0; }

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
  • e3ccfe1ad7d895487977ef64eda3441d16c9851a to before 7d9ae9d4d45b28c18ca06ae047aabe09d9639643Affected
  • e3ccfe1ad7d895487977ef64eda3441d16c9851a to before d2993a7e98eb70c737c6f5365a190e79c72b8407Affected
  • e3ccfe1ad7d895487977ef64eda3441d16c9851a to before edd824eb45e4f7e05ad3ab090dab6dbdb79cd292Affected
  • e3ccfe1ad7d895487977ef64eda3441d16c9851a to before 02aa671c08a4834bef5166743a7b88686fbfa023Affected
  • e3ccfe1ad7d895487977ef64eda3441d16c9851a to before 88b4cbcf6b041ae0f2fc8a34554a5b6a83a2b7cdAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.14Affected
  • before 5.14Not affected
  • 6.1.191 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.117 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.58 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.17.8 through 6.17.*Not affected
  • 6.18 and laterNot affected

References

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