CVE-2025-21854: sockmap, vsock: For connectible sockets allow only connected

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-03-12 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sockmap, vsock: For connectible sockets allow only connected sockmap expects all vsocks to have a transport assigned, which is expressed in vsock_proto::psock_update_sk_prot(). However, there is an edge case where an unconnected (connectible) socket may lose its previously assigned transport. This is handled with a NULL check in the vsock/BPF recv path. Another design detail is that listening vsocks are not supposed to have any transport assigned at all. Which implies they are not supported by the sockmap. But this is complicated by the fact that a socket, before switching to TCP_LISTEN, may have had some transport assigned during a failed connect() attempt. Hence, we may end up with a listening vsock in a sockmap, which blows up quickly: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000120-0x0000000000000127] CPU: 7 UID: 0 PID: 56 Comm: kworker/7:0 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc1+ Workqueue: vsock-loopback vsock_loopback_work RIP: 0010:vsock_read_skb+0x4b/0x90 Call Trace: sk_psock_verdict_data_ready+0xa4/0x2e0 virtio_transport_recv_pkt+0x1ca8/0x2acc vsock_loopback_work+0x27d/0x3f0 process_one_work+0x846/0x1420 worker_thread+0x5b3/0xf80 kthread+0x35a/0x700 ret_from_fork+0x2d/0x70 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 For connectible sockets, instead of relying solely on the state of vsk->transport, tell sockmap to only allow those representing established connections. This aligns with the behaviour for AF_INET and AF_UNIX.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.4 before 6.6.80; from 6.7 before 6.12.17; from 6.13 before 6.13.5; 6.14-rc1, 6.14-rc2, 6.14-rc3 — fixed in 6.12.17, 6.13.5, 6.6.80

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.17, 6.13.5, 6.6.80. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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