CVE-2025-39847: ppp: fix memory leak in pad_compress_skb

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: 2025-09-19 · updated 2026-10-19
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ppp: fix memory leak in pad_compress_skb If alloc_skb() fails in pad_compress_skb(), it returns NULL without releasing the old skb. The caller does: skb = pad_compress_skb(ppp, skb); if (!skb) goto drop; drop: kfree_skb(skb); When pad_compress_skb() returns NULL, the reference to the old skb is lost and kfree_skb(skb) ends up doing nothing, leading to a memory leak. Align pad_compress_skb() semantics with realloc(): only free the old skb if allocation and compression succeed. At the call site, use the new_skb variable so the original skb is not lost when pad_compress_skb() fails.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 11.0
Linux kernel: from 2.6.15 before 5.4.299; from 5.5 before 5.10.243; from 5.11 before 5.15.192; from 5.16 before 6.1.151; from 6.2 before 6.6.105; from 6.7 before 6.12.46 — fixed in 5.10.243, 5.15.192, 5.4.299, 6.1.151, 6.12.46, 6.16.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.243, 5.15.192, 5.4.299, 6.1.151. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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