What is CVE-2025-21953?

CVE-2025-21953 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, classified as a NULL Pointer Dereference flaw (CWE-476), affecting Linux kernel versions from 6.13 onward and patched in 6.13.8 and 6.14. CVE-2025-21953 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2025-21953?

CVE-2025-21953 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-21953?

Yes, CVE-2025-21953 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.13.8 and 6.14. If you are running Linux kernel 6.13 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2025-21953 actively exploited?

CVE-2025-21953 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476)?

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL, typically causing a crash. See MITRE CWE for full details: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/476.html

CVE-2025-21953

Medium

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: mana: cleanup mana struct after debugfs_remove() When on a MANA VM hibernation is triggered, as part of hibernate_snapshot(), mana_gd_suspend() and mana_gd_resume() are called. If during this mana_gd_resume(), a failure occurs with HWC creation, mana_port_debugfs pointer does not get reinitialized and ends up pointing to older, cleaned-up dentry. Further in the hibernation path, as part of power_down(), mana_gd_shutdown() is triggered. This call, unaware of the failures in resume, tries to cleanup the already cleaned up mana_port_debugfs value and hits the following bug: [ 191.359296] mana 7870:00:00.0: Shutdown was called [ 191.359918] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000098 [ 191.360584] #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode [ 191.361125] #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page [ 191.361727] PGD 1080ea067 P4D 0 [ 191.362172] Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ 191.362606] CPU: 11 UID: 0 PID: 1674 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.14.0-rc5+ #2 [ 191.363292] Hardware name: Microsoft Corporation Virtual Machine/Virtual Machine, BIOS Hyper-V UEFI Release v4.1 11/21/2024 [ 191.364124] RIP: 0010:down_write+0x19/0x50 [ 191.364537] Code: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 0f 1f 44 00 00 55 48 89 e5 53 48 89 fb e8 de cd ff ff 31 c0 ba 01 00 00 00 <f0> 48 0f b1 13 75 16 65 48 8b 05 88 24 4c 6a 48 89 43 08 48 8b 5d [ 191.365867] RSP: 0000:ff45fbe0c1c037b8 EFLAGS: 00010246 [ 191.366350] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000098 RCX: ffffff8100000000 [ 191.366951] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000000000064 RDI: 0000000000000098 [ 191.367600] RBP: ff45fbe0c1c037c0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000001 [ 191.368225] R10: ff45fbe0d2b01000 R11: 0000000000000008 R12: 0000000000000000 [ 191.368874] R13: 000000000000000b R14: ff43dc27509d67c0 R15: 0000000000000020 [ 191.369549] FS: 00007dbc5001e740(0000) GS:ff43dc663f380000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 191.370213] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 191.370830] CR2: 0000000000000098 CR3: 0000000168e8e002 CR4: 0000000000b73ef0 [ 191.371557] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 191.372192] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe07f0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 191.372906] Call Trace: [ 191.373262] <TASK> [ 191.373621] ? show_regs+0x64/0x70 [ 191.374040] ? __die+0x24/0x70 [ 191.374468] ? page_fault_oops+0x290/0x5b0 [ 191.374875] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x448/0x800 [ 191.375357] ? exc_page_fault+0x7a/0x160 [ 191.375971] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30 [ 191.376416] ? down_write+0x19/0x50 [ 191.376832] ? down_write+0x12/0x50 [ 191.377232] simple_recursive_removal+0x4a/0x2a0 [ 191.377679] ? __pfx_remove_one+0x10/0x10 [ 191.378088] debugfs_remove+0x44/0x70 [ 191.378530] mana_detach+0x17c/0x4f0 [ 191.378950] ? __flush_work+0x1e2/0x3b0 [ 191.379362] ? __cond_resched+0x1a/0x50 [ 191.379787] mana_remove+0xf2/0x1a0 [ 191.380193] mana_gd_shutdown+0x3b/0x70 [ 191.380642] pci_device_shutdown+0x3a/0x80 [ 191.381063] device_shutdown+0x13e/0x230 [ 191.381480] kernel_power_off+0x35/0x80 [ 191.381890] hibernate+0x3c6/0x470 [ 191.382312] state_store+0xcb/0xd0 [ 191.382734] kobj_attr_store+0x12/0x30 [ 191.383211] sysfs_kf_write+0x3e/0x50 [ 191.383640] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x140/0x1d0 [ 191.384106] vfs_write+0x271/0x440 [ 191.384521] ksys_write+0x72/0xf0 [ 191.384924] __x64_sys_write+0x19/0x20 [ 191.385313] x64_sys_call+0x2b0/0x20b0 [ 191.385736] do_syscall_64+0x79/0x150 [ 191.386146] ? __mod_memcg_lruvec_state+0xe7/0x240 [ 191.386676] ? __lruvec_stat_mod_folio+0x79/0xb0 [ 191.387124] ? __pfx_lru_add+0x10/0x10 [ 191.387515] ? queued_spin_unlock+0x9/0x10 [ 191.387937] ? do_anonymous_page+0x33c/0xa00 [ 191.388374] ? __handle_mm_fault+0xcf3/0x1210 [ 191.388805] ? __count_memcg_events+0xbe/0x180 [ 191.389235] ? handle_mm_fault+0xae/0x300 [ 19 ---truncated---

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2025-04-01

Last modified 2025-10-01

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Yes

CVSS 3.1 score

5.5

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Vector string

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness type

CWE-476

CVE-2025-21953 is a NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability

What is NULL Pointer Dereference?

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL, typically causing a crash. Learn more on MITRE CWE

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.13 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.13.8, 6.14 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 6.13

Fixed in

✓ 6.13.8 6.13.x ✓ 6.14

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2025-21953 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e64bb2ae7d9f2b3a8259d4d6b86ed1984d5460a
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a1466112fb6e819261272ad75e7db750a43b78bf
Patch

Details

CVE ID CVE-2025-21953

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.5 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2025-04-01

Modified 2025-10-01

KEV No

Patch

Yes

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-21953?

CVE-2025-21953 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 , classified as a NULL Pointer Dereference flaw (CWE-476) . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.13 onward and has been patched in 6.13.8 and 6.14. CVE-2025-21953 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2025-21953?

CVE-2025-21953 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-21953?

Yes — CVE-2025-21953 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.13.8 and 6.14. If you are running Linux kernel 6.13 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2025-21953 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2025-21953 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
What is NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476)?

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL, typically causing a crash. View CWE-476 on MITRE CWE →