Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-21753

high Nessus Plugin ID 231105

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix use-after-free when attempting to join an aborted transaction When we are trying to join the current transaction and if it's aborted, we read its 'aborted' field after unlocking fs_info->trans_lock and without holding any extra reference count on it. This means that a concurrent task that is aborting the transaction may free the transaction before we read its 'aborted' field, leading to a use-after-free. Fix this by reading the 'aborted' field while holding fs_info->trans_lock since any freeing task must first acquire that lock and set fs_info->running_transaction to NULL before freeing the transaction. This was reported by syzbot and Dmitry with the following stack traces from KASAN:
================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in join_transaction+0xd9b/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:278 Read of size 4 at addr ffff888011839024 by task kworker/u4:9/1128 CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1128 Comm: kworker/u4:9 Not tainted 6.13.0-rc7-syzkaller-00019-gc45323b7560e #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014 Workqueue: events_unbound btrfs_async_reclaim_data_space Call Trace: <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:120 print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:378 [inline] print_report+0x169/0x550 mm/kasan/report.c:489 kasan_report+0x143/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:602 join_transaction+0xd9b/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:278 start_transaction+0xaf8/0x1670 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:697 flush_space+0x448/0xcf0 fs/btrfs/space- info.c:803 btrfs_async_reclaim_data_space+0x159/0x510 fs/btrfs/space-info.c:1321 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3236 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xa66/0x1840 kernel/workqueue.c:3317 worker_thread+0x870/0xd30 kernel/workqueue.c:3398 kthread+0x2f0/0x390 kernel/kthread.c:389 ret_from_fork+0x4b/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:244 </TASK> Allocated by task 5315: kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline] kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68 poison_kmalloc_redzone mm/kasan/common.c:377 [inline] __kasan_kmalloc+0x98/0xb0 mm/kasan/common.c:394 kasan_kmalloc include/linux/kasan.h:260 [inline]
__kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x243/0x390 mm/slub.c:4329 kmalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:901 [inline] join_transaction+0x144/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:308 start_transaction+0xaf8/0x1670 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:697 btrfs_create_common+0x1b2/0x2e0 fs/btrfs/inode.c:6572 lookup_open fs/namei.c:3649 [inline] open_last_lookups fs/namei.c:3748 [inline] path_openat+0x1c03/0x3590 fs/namei.c:3984 do_filp_open+0x27f/0x4e0 fs/namei.c:4014 do_sys_openat2+0x13e/0x1d0 fs/open.c:1402 do_sys_open fs/open.c:1417 [inline] __do_sys_creat fs/open.c:1495 [inline] __se_sys_creat fs/open.c:1489 [inline] __x64_sys_creat+0x123/0x170 fs/open.c:1489 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f Freed by task 5336: kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline] kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68 kasan_save_free_info+0x40/0x50 mm/kasan/generic.c:582 poison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:247 [inline]
__kasan_slab_free+0x59/0x70 mm/kasan/common.c:264 kasan_slab_free include/linux/kasan.h:233 [inline] slab_free_hook mm/slub.c:2353 [inline] slab_free mm/slub.c:4613 [inline] kfree+0x196/0x430 mm/slub.c:4761 cleanup_transaction fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2063 [inline] btrfs_commit_transaction+0x2c97/0x3720 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2598 insert_balance_item+0x1284/0x20b0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3757 btrfs_balance+0x992/
---truncated--- (CVE-2025-21753)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 231105

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2025_21753.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/6/2025

Updated: 3/6/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.4

Temporal Score: 4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2025-21753

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/27/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2025-21753

Detections

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