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Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2025-21644

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.12.10 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/xe: Fix tlb invalidation when wedging If GuC fails to load, the driver wedges, but in the process it tries to do stuff that may not be initialized yet. This moves the xe_gt_tlb_invalidation_init() to be done earlier: as its own doc says, it's a software-only initialization and should had been named with the _early() suffix. Move it to be called by xe_gt_init_early(), so the locks and seqno are initialized, avoiding a NULL ptr deref when wedging: xe 0000:03:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* GT0: load failed: status: Reset = 0, BootROM = 0x50, UKernel = 0x00, MIA = 0x00, Auth = 0x01 xe 0000:03:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* GT0: firmware signature verification failed xe 0000:03:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* CRITICAL: Xe has declared device 0000:03:00.0 as wedged. ... BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 9 UID: 0 PID: 3908 Comm: modprobe Tainted: G U W 6.13.0-rc4-xe+ #3 Tainted: [U]=USER, [W]=WARN Hardware name: Intel Corporation Alder Lake Client Platform/AlderLake-S ADP-S DDR5 UDIMM CRB, BIOS ADLSFWI1.R00.3275.A00.2207010640 07/01/2022 RIP: 0010:xe_gt_tlb_invalidation_reset+0x75/0x110 [xe] This can be easily triggered by poking the GuC binary to force a signature failure. There will still be an extra message, xe 0000:03:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* GT0: GuC mmio request 0x4100: no reply 0x4100 but that's better than a NULL ptr deref. (cherry picked from commit 5001ef3af8f2c972d6fd9c5221a8457556f8bea6)

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-476

The code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.

General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
Affected:>= 6.11, < 6.12.10= 6.13

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 6.12.10 or later
Fixed in 6.12.10
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

6.12.10+ or 6.13.1+

  1. Check current kernel version with `uname -r`
  2. Upgrade to Linux kernel version 6.12.10 or later, OR version 6.13.1 or later
  3. Reboot the system to load the fixed kernel

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $2,850. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-21644 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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