Kernel disclosure and corruption via unreferenced splice buffer
Published Oct 20, 2025 · Updated Oct 20, 2025
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel's SMC loopback receive path allows local users to disclose or corrupt kernel memory through splice(). The smc_lo_register_dmb() function allocates a DMB with kzalloc(), but smc_rx_splice() passes that non-page-backed memory to get_page(), leaving the pipe without a valid reference after the socket frees the buffer. An unprivileged process can drive both loopback AF_SMC endpoints without user interaction, enabling kernel-heap disclosure, memory corruption, privilege escalation, or a kernel panic.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel's SMC loopback receive path allows local users to disclose or corrupt kernel memory through splice(). The smc_lo_register_dmb() function allocates a DMB with kzalloc(), but smc_rx_splice() passes that non-page-backed memory to get_page(), leaving the pipe without a valid reference after the socket frees the buffer. An unprivileged process can drive both loopback AF_SMC endpoints without user interaction, enabling kernel-heap disclosure, memory corruption, privilege escalation, or a kernel panic.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-40012
- Published
- Oct 20, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 20, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 20, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 20, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=6.10
- Affected versionversion=f7a22071dbf316c982fb44308874bd7ad9ac2091 <14fc4fdae42e34d7ee871b292ac2ecc61c2c5de7
- Affected versionversion=f7a22071dbf316c982fb44308874bd7ad9ac2091 <a35c04de2565db191726b5741e6b66a35002c652
- Affected versionversion=f7a22071dbf316c982fb44308874bd7ad9ac2091 <d5411685dc2f6ac7bdf01a0a204d56cae38c6cf6
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
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Technologies
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Your stack
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