Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2025-37799

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-05-03
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.6.89 / 6.8 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: vmxnet3: Fix malformed packet sizing in vmxnet3_process_xdp vmxnet3 driver's XDP handling is buggy for packet sizes using ring0 (that is, packet sizes between 128 - 3k bytes). We noticed MTU-related connectivity issues with Cilium's service load- balancing in case of vmxnet3 as NIC underneath. A simple curl to a HTTP backend service where the XDP LB was doing IPIP encap led to overly large packet sizes but only for *some* of the packets (e.g. HTTP GET request) while others (e.g. the prior TCP 3WHS) looked completely fine on the wire. In fact, the pcap recording on the backend node actually revealed that the node with the XDP LB was leaking uninitialized kernel data onto the wire for the affected packets, for example, while the packets should have been 152 bytes their actual size was 1482 bytes, so the remainder after 152 bytes was padded with whatever other data was in that page at the time (e.g. we saw user/payload data from prior processed packets). We only noticed this through an MTU issue, e.g. when the XDP LB node and the backend node both had the same MTU (e.g. 1500) then the curl request got dropped on the backend node's NIC given the packet was too large even though the IPIP-encapped packet normally would never even come close to the MTU limit. Lowering the MTU on the XDP LB (e.g. 1480) allowed to let the curl request succeed (which also indicates that the kernel ignored the padding, and thus the issue wasn't very user-visible). Commit e127ce7699c1 ("vmxnet3: Fix missing reserved tailroom") was too eager to also switch xdp_prepare_buff() from rcd->len to rbi->len. It really needs to stick to rcd->len which is the actual packet length from the descriptor. The latter we also feed into vmxnet3_process_xdp_small(), by the way, and it indicates the correct length needed to initialize the xdp->{data,data_end} parts. For e127ce7699c1 ("vmxnet3: Fix missing reserved tailroom") the relevant part was adapting xdp_init_buff() to address the warning given the xdp_data_hard_end() depends on xdp->frame_sz. With that fixed, traffic on the wire looks good again.

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:>= 6.6.23, < 6.6.89>= 6.7.11, < 6.8>= 6.8.2, < 6.12.26>= 6.13, < 6.14.5= 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 6.6.89 / 6.8 / 6.12.26 or later
Fixed in 6.6.896.86.12.26
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

6.6.89 or 6.12.26 or 6.14.5 (depending on current branch)

  1. 1. Identify the currently running Linux kernel version using `uname -r`
  2. 2. Determine which kernel branch your version belongs to (e.g., 6.6.y, 6.7.y, 6.8.y, 6.12.y, 6.13.y, or 6.14.y)
  3. 3. For 6.6.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.6.89 or later
  4. 4. For 6.7.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.8 or later (6.7.x is EOL, migrate to 6.8 or newer)
  5. 5. For 6.8.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.12.26 or later
  6. 6. For 6.12.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.12.26 or later
  7. 7. For 6.13.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.14.5 or later
  8. 8. For 6.14.y branches: upgrade to kernel version 6.14.5 or later
Caveat Kernel upgrades may require system reboot and could introduce compatibility changes with third-party modules; ensure dependent modules are rebuilt for the new kernel version

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
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-37799 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-37799 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data