CVE-2025-22077
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 · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Revert "smb: client: fix TCP timers deadlock after rmmod" This reverts commit e9f2517a3e18a54a3943c098d2226b245d488801. Commit e9f2517a3e18 ("smb: client: fix TCP timers deadlock after rmmod") is intended to fix a null-ptr-deref in LOCKDEP, which is mentioned as CVE-2024-54680, but is actually did not fix anything; The issue can be reproduced on top of it. [0] Also, it reverted the change by commit ef7134c7fc48 ("smb: client: Fix use-after-free of network namespace.") and introduced a real issue by reviving the kernel TCP socket. When a reconnect happens for a CIFS connection, the socket state transitions to FIN_WAIT_1. Then, inet_csk_clear_xmit_timers_sync() in tcp_close() stops all timers for the socket. If an incoming FIN packet is lost, the socket will stay at FIN_WAIT_1 forever, and such sockets could be leaked up to net.ipv4.tcp_max_orphans. Usually, FIN can be retransmitted by the peer, but if the peer aborts the connection, the issue comes into reality. I warned about this privately by pointing out the exact report [1], but the bogus fix was finally merged. So, we should not stop the timers to finally kill the connection on our side in that case, meaning we must not use a kernel socket for TCP whose sk->sk_net_refcnt is 0. The kernel socket does not have a reference to its netns to make it possible to tear down netns without cleaning up every resource in it. For example, tunnel devices use a UDP socket internally, but we can destroy netns without removing such devices and let it complete during exit. Otherwise, netns would be leaked when the last application died. However, this is problematic for TCP sockets because TCP has timers to close the connection gracefully even after the socket is close()d. The lifetime of the socket and its netns is different from the lifetime of the underlying connection. If the socket user does not maintain the netns lifetime, the timer could be fired after the socket is close()d and its netns is freed up, resulting in use-after-free. Actually, we have seen so many similar issues and converted such sockets to have a reference to netns. That's why I converted the CIFS client socket to have a reference to netns (sk->sk_net_refcnt == 1), which is somehow mentioned as out-of-scope of CIFS and technically wrong in e9f2517a3e18, but **is in-scope and right fix**. Regarding the LOCKDEP issue, we can prevent the module unload by bumping the module refcount when switching the LOCKDDEP key in sock_lock_init_class_and_name(). [2] For a while, let's revert the bogus fix. Note that now we can use sk_net_refcnt_upgrade() for the socket conversion, but I'll do so later separately to make backport easy.
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 analysisShared resources are accessed without correct locking, so concurrent operations interleave into inconsistent — and sometimes exploitable — states, or deadlock the service outright. These bugs are subtle and timing-dependent. The fix is correct, consistent locking or atomic operations around every shared resource.
General guidance for the improper locking 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>= 6.6.68, < 6.6.88>= 6.12.7, < 6.12.25>= 6.13.1, < 6.14.4= 6.13= 6.15CVSS 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 · scoped6.6.886.12.256.14.4
Kernel 6.6.88+ for 6.6.x branch, 6.12.25+ for 6.12.x branch, or 6.14.4+ for 6.13.x/6.14.x branch
- 1. Identify the current running kernel version using `uname -r`
- 2. Check your Linux distribution's available kernel packages that meet the minimum fixed version for your kernel branch
- 3. For systems running kernel 6.6.x: upgrade to kernel version 6.6.88 or later
- 4. For systems running kernel 6.12.x: upgrade to kernel version 6.12.25 or later
- 5. For systems running kernel 6.13.x or 6.14.x: upgrade to kernel version 6.14.4 or later
- 6. Ensure the upgrade includes the fix commit 4b6f6bf1bde8d6045c389fda8d21c304dfe49384
- 7. Reboot the system into the new kernel
- 8. After reboot, verify the fix is applied by checking the kernel version and reviewing the commit in the kernel source if needed
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-22077 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-22077 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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