Kernel crash via stale IOMMU DMA state
Published May 9, 2025 · Updated May 11, 2026
Denial of service in the Linux kernel 6.12 through 6.15-rc1 allows local users to crash the system after an IOMMU driver probe fails. The iommu_device_register() error path tears down configured groups and default domains, but iommu_deinit_device() does not clear dev->dma_iommu, so later DMA handling follows stale state. The reachable condition requires a present IOMMU whose driver fails to probe; the reported consequence is a kernel crash rather than data access or modification.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in the Linux kernel 6.12 through 6.15-rc1 allows local users to crash the system after an IOMMU driver probe fails. The iommu_device_register() error path tears down configured groups and default domains, but iommu_deinit_device() does not clear dev->dma_iommu, so later DMA handling follows stale state. The reachable condition requires a present IOMMU whose driver fails to probe; the reported consequence is a kernel crash rather than data access or modification.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-37877
- Published
- May 9, 2025
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 9, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=6.12
- Affected versionversion=b5c58b2fdc427e7958412ecb2de2804a1f7c1572 <104a84276821aed0ed241ce0d82d6c3267e3fcb8
- Affected versionversion=b5c58b2fdc427e7958412ecb2de2804a1f7c1572 <280e5a30100578106a4305ce0118e0aa9b866f12
- Affected versionversion=b5c58b2fdc427e7958412ecb2de2804a1f7c1572 <b14d98641312d972bb3f38e82eddf92898522389
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo