Remote service interruption via veth lost wakeup
Published Dec 16, 2025 · Updated Dec 16, 2025
Race condition in Linux 6.16 through 6.17.9 allows remote attackers to halt veth transmit traffic with sustained forwarded traffic. In veth_xmit(), the producer stops a full ptr_ring and then relies on __ptr_ring_empty(), a consumer-side check that can miss a concurrent drain and lose the queue wakeup. Reachability requires traffic to traverse a suitably configured container veth with qdisc and NAPI/XDP; the resulting single-queue stall persists until administrative recovery.
Summary
What happened
Race condition in Linux 6.16 through 6.17.9 allows remote attackers to halt veth transmit traffic with sustained forwarded traffic. In veth_xmit(), the producer stops a full ptr_ring and then relies on __ptr_ring_empty(), a consumer-side check that can miss a concurrent drain and lose the queue wakeup. Reachability requires traffic to traverse a suitably configured container veth with qdisc and NAPI/XDP; the resulting single-queue stall persists until administrative recovery.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-68232
- Published
- Dec 16, 2025
- Updated
- Dec 16, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1498
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Dec 16, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Dec 16, 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?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=6.16
- Affected versionversion=9fe31b3f314534e238aa6d0b6fb492134cbcf8be <dd419a3f2ebc18cc00bc32c57fd052d7a188b78b
- Affected versionversion=dc82a33297fc2c58cb0b2b008d728668d45c0f6a <5442a9da69789741bfda39f34ee7f69552bf0c56
- Affected versionversion=dc82a33297fc2c58cb0b2b008d728668d45c0f6a <6c8a8b9257a660e622689e23c8fbad4ba2b561b9
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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