Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2025-37760

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-05-01
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.12.25 / 6.14 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: mm/vma: add give_up_on_oom option on modify/merge, use in uffd release Currently, if a VMA merge fails due to an OOM condition arising on commit merge or a failure to duplicate anon_vma's, we report this so the caller can handle it. However there are cases where the caller is only ostensibly trying a merge, and doesn't mind if it fails due to this condition. Since we do not want to introduce an implicit assumption that we only actually modify VMAs after OOM conditions might arise, add a 'give up on oom' option and make an explicit contract that, should this flag be set, we absolutely will not modify any VMAs should OOM arise and just bail out. Since it'd be very unusual for a user to try to vma_modify() with this flag set but be specifying a range within a VMA which ends up being split (which can fail due to rlimit issues, not only OOM), we add a debug warning for this condition. The motivating reason for this is uffd release - syzkaller (and Pedro Falcato's VERY astute analysis) found a way in which an injected fault on allocation, triggering an OOM condition on commit merge, would result in uffd code becoming confused and treating an error value as if it were a VMA pointer. To avoid this, we make use of this new VMG flag to ensure that this never occurs, utilising the fact that, should we be clearing entire VMAs, we do not wish an OOM event to be reported to us. Many thanks to Pedro Falcato for his excellent analysis and Jann Horn for his insightful and intelligent analysis of the situation, both of whom were instrumental in this fix.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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:>= 6.12.19, < 6.12.25>= 6.13.7, < 6.14>= 6.14.1, < 6.14.4= 6.14= 6.15

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 6.12.25 / 6.14 / 6.14.4 or later
Fixed in 6.12.256.146.14.4
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

6.12.25, 6.14.4, or any later stable kernel version (e.g., 6.14.5+)

  1. Identify the currently running kernel version using `uname -r`
  2. Check if the running version is within the affected range: 6.12.19 through 6.12.24, 6.13.7 through 6.13.x, 6.14.0, or 6.14.1 through 6.14.3
  3. Schedule a maintenance window for the kernel upgrade
  4. Update to a fixed stable kernel version: 6.12.25, 6.14.4, or later (e.g., 6.14.5+)
  5. For Debian/Ubuntu: `apt-get update && apt-get install linux-image-generic` then reboot
  6. For RHEL/CentOS: `yum update kernel` then reboot
  7. For Arch Linux: `pacman -Syu linux` then reboot
  8. For other distributions: obtain kernel from your vendor's stable repositories or compile 6.12.25+/6.14.4+ from kernel.org
Caveat Kernel upgrades may require rebuild of out-of-tree modules; ensure compatible drivers/modules are available before rebooting

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 $1,600. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
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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-2025-37760 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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