CVE-2025-21696: mm: clear uffd-wp PTE/PMD state on mremap()

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-02-12 · updated 2026-10-30

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: clear uffd-wp PTE/PMD state on mremap() When mremap()ing a memory region previously registered with userfaultfd as write-protected but without UFFD_FEATURE_EVENT_REMAP, an inconsistency in flag clearing leads to a mismatch between the vma flags (which have uffd-wp cleared) and the pte/pmd flags (which do not have uffd-wp cleared). This mismatch causes a subsequent mprotect(PROT_WRITE) to trigger a warning in page_table_check_pte_flags() due to setting the pte to writable while uffd-wp is still set. Fix this by always explicitly clearing the uffd-wp pte/pmd flags on any such mremap() so that the values are consistent with the existing clearing of VM_UFFD_WP. Be careful to clear the logical flag regardless of its physical form; a PTE bit, a swap PTE bit, or a PTE marker. Cover PTE, huge PMD and hugetlb paths.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.7 before 6.12.11; 6.13-rc1, 6.13-rc2, 6.13-rc3, 6.13-rc4, 6.13-rc5, 6.13-rc6 (+1) — fixed in 6.12.11
Linux: 5.7 — fixed in 6.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.11; Linux 6.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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