CVE-2025-38170

MEDIUM
MEDIUM Priority: 0.01 BB Relevance: 36/100
Published: 2025-07-03 Modified: 2026-11-05 First seen: 2026-11-05 Status: active

Attack Surface

Low Complexity No Interaction

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV: Local
AC: Low
PR: Low
UI: None
S: Unchanged
C: None
I: None
A: High

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: arm64/fpsimd: Discard stale CPU state when handling SME traps The logic for handling SME traps manipulates saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state incorrectly, and a race with preemption can result in a task having TIF_SME set and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE clear even though the live CPU state is stale (e.g. with SME traps enabled). This can result in warnings from do_sme_acc() where SME traps are not expected while TIF_SME is set: | /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */ | if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME)) | WARN_ON(1); This is very similar to the SVE issue we fixed in commit: 751ecf6afd6568ad ("arm64/sve: Discard stale CPU state when handling SVE traps") The race can occur when the SME trap handler is preempted before and after manipulating the saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state, starting and ending on the same CPU, e.g. | void do_sme_acc(unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs) | { | // Trap on CPU 0 with TIF_SME clear, SME traps enabled | // task->fpsimd_cpu is 0. | // per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is task. | | ... | | // Preempted; migrated from CPU 0 to CPU 1. | // TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set. | | get_cpu_fpsimd_context(); | | /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */ | if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME)) | WARN_ON(1); | | if (!test_thread_flag(TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE)) { | unsigned long vq_minus_one = | sve_vq_from_vl(task_get_sme_vl(current)) - 1; | sme_set_vq(vq_minus_one); | | fpsimd_bind_task_to_cpu(); | } | | put_cpu_fpsimd_context(); | | // Preempted; migrated from CPU 1 to CPU 0. | // task->fpsimd_cpu is still 0 | // If per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is still task then: | // - Stale HW state is reused (with SME traps enabled) | // - TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is cleared | // - A return to userspace skips HW state restore | } Fix the case where the state is not live and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set by calling fpsimd_flush_task_state() to detach from the saved CPU state. This ensures that a subsequent context switch will not reuse the stale CPU state, and will instead set TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE, forcing the new state to be reloaded from memory prior to a return to userspace. Note: this was originallly posted as [1]. [ Rutland: rewrite commit message ]

Affected Software (8)

VendorProductVersion
Linux Linux 8bd7f91c03d886f41d35f6108078d20be5a4a1bd < de89368de3894a8db27caeb8fd902ba1c49f696a
Linux Linux 8bd7f91c03d886f41d35f6108078d20be5a4a1bd < 43be952e885476dafb74aa832c0847b2f4f650c6
Linux Linux 8bd7f91c03d886f41d35f6108078d20be5a4a1bd < 6103f9ba51a59afb5a0f32299c837377c5a5a693
Linux Linux 8bd7f91c03d886f41d35f6108078d20be5a4a1bd < c4a4786d93e99517d6f10ed56b9ffba4ce88d3b3
Linux Linux 8bd7f91c03d886f41d35f6108078d20be5a4a1bd < d3eaab3c70905c5467e5c4ea403053d67505adeb
Linux Linux 5.19
debian debian_linux 11.0
linux linux_kernel 5.19 – 6.1.142

Bug Bounty Relevance

36 / 100
✓ Low complexity
✓ No user interaction

CVSS Score

5.5 / 10.0 v3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS — Exploitation Probability

0.17%
Raw Score 0.001710
Percentile 6.6%
Date 2026-11-06

EPSS Trend

2026-11-06
0.00171
2026-11-05
0.00167

Intelligence Sources

mitre ref →
nvd ref →