CVE-2025-68296: drm, fbcon, vga_switcheroo: Avoid race condition in fbcon setup

Severity: unknown
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: 2025-12-16 · updated 2026-10-14

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm, fbcon, vga_switcheroo: Avoid race condition in fbcon setup Protect vga_switcheroo_client_fb_set() with console lock. Avoids OOB access in fbcon_remap_all(). Without holding the console lock the call races with switching outputs. VGA switcheroo calls fbcon_remap_all() when switching clients. The fbcon function uses struct fb_info.node, which is set by register_framebuffer(). As the fb-helper code currently sets up VGA switcheroo before registering the framebuffer, the value of node is -1 and therefore not a legal value. For example, fbcon uses the value within set_con2fb_map() [1] as an index into an array. Moving vga_switcheroo_client_fb_set() after register_framebuffer() can result in VGA switching that does not switch fbcon correctly. Therefore move vga_switcheroo_client_fb_set() under fbcon_fb_registered(), which already holds the console lock. Fbdev calls fbcon_fb_registered() from within register_framebuffer(). Serializes the helper with VGA switcheroo's call to fbcon_remap_all(). Although vga_switcheroo_client_fb_set() takes an instance of struct fb_info as parameter, it really only needs the contained fbcon state. Moving the call to fbcon initialization is therefore cleaner than before. Only amdgpu, i915, nouveau and radeon support vga_switcheroo. For all other drivers, this change does nothing.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 2.6.34 — fixed in 6.18

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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