Kernel crash via RCU-unsafe thin-device list lookup
Published Jan 21, 2025 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Race condition in the dm-thin driver in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel during concurrent thin-device I/O and teardown. The get_first_thin() function separately checks list_empty() and then reads the first RCU list entry, allowing thin_dtr() to remove the last entry between those reads and leave a self-referential list head interpreted as thin_c. Triggering the fault requires local access to a thin volume and concurrent device teardown; the documented consequence is a general-protection fault and system crash.
Summary
What happened
Race condition in the dm-thin driver in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel during concurrent thin-device I/O and teardown. The get_first_thin() function separately checks list_empty() and then reads the first RCU list entry, allowing thin_dtr() to remove the last entry between those reads and leave a self-referential list head interpreted as thin_c. Triggering the fault requires local access to a thin volume and concurrent device teardown; the documented consequence is a general-protection fault and system crash.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-21664
- Published
- Jan 21, 2025
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- Siemens
- Product
- SIMATIC S7-1500 TM MFP - GNU/Linux subsystem
- Classifications
- CWE-20, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 21, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 5, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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- Affected versionversion=0 <*
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