CVE-2025-71115: um: init cpu_tasks[] earlier

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-01-14 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-908

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: um: init cpu_tasks[] earlier This is currently done in uml_finishsetup(), but e.g. with KCOV enabled we'll crash because some init code can call into e.g. memparse(), which has coverage annotations, and then the checks in check_kcov_mode() crash because current is NULL. Simply initialize the cpu_tasks[] array statically, which fixes the crash. For the later SMP work, it seems to have not really caused any problems yet, but initialize all of the entries anyway.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.13.1 before 6.18.3; 6.13, 6.19-rc1, 6.19-rc2, 6.19-rc3, 6.19-rc4, 6.19-rc5 (+3) — fixed in 6.18.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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