CVE-2025-68231

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/mempool: fix poisoning order>0 pages with HIGHMEM The kernel test has reported: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: fffba000 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page *pde = 03171067 *pte = 00000000 Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G T 6.18.0-rc2-00031-gec7f31b2a2d3 #1 NONE a1d066dfe789f54bc7645c7989957d2bdee593ca Tainted: [T]=RANDSTRUCT Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 EIP: memset (arch/x86/include/asm/string_32.h:168 arch/x86/lib/memcpy_32.c:17) Code: a5 8b 4d f4 83 e1 03 74 02 f3 a4 83 c4 04 5e 5f 5d 2e e9 73 41 01 00 90 90 90 3e 8d 74 26 00 55 89 e5 57 56 89 c6 89 d0 89 f7 <f3> aa 89 f0 5e 5f 5d 2e e9 53 41 01 00 cc cc cc 55 89 e5 53 57 56 EAX: 0000006b EBX: 00000015 ECX: 001fefff EDX: 0000006b ESI: fffb9000 EDI: fffba000 EBP: c611fbf0 ESP: c611fbe8 DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 0000 GS: 0000 SS: 0068 EFLAGS: 00010287 CR0: 80050033 CR2: fffba000 CR3: 0316e000 CR4: 00040690 Call Trace: poison_element (mm/mempool.c:83 mm/mempool.c:102) mempool_init_node (mm/mempool.c:142 mm/mempool.c:226) mempool_init_noprof (mm/mempool.c:250 (discriminator 1)) ? mempool_alloc_pages (mm/mempool.c:640) bio_integrity_initfn (block/bio-integrity.c:483 (discriminator 8)) ? mempool_alloc_pages (mm/mempool.c:640) do_one_initcall (init/main.c:1283) Christoph found out this is due to the poisoning code not dealing properly with CONFIG_HIGHMEM because only the first page is mapped but then the whole potentially high-order page is accessed. We could give up on HIGHMEM here, but it's straightforward to fix this with a loop that's mapping, poisoning or checking and unmapping individual pages.

Package Linux Kernel
Published 2025-12-16
Last modified 2026-04-15
Patch available
Yes

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 4.1 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.1.159, 6.6.118, 6.12.60, 6.17.10, 6.18 and their respective stable series.

Affected from
≥ 4.1
Fixed in
✓ 6.1.159 6.1.x ✓ 6.6.118 6.6.x ✓ 6.12.60 6.12.x ✓ 6.17.10 6.17.x ✓ 6.18

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2025-68231 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Frequently asked questions

  • What is CVE-2025-68231?

    CVE-2025-68231 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 4.1 onward and has been patched in 6.1.159, 6.6.118, 6.12.60 and others. CVE-2025-68231 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

  • Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-68231?

    Yes — CVE-2025-68231 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.159, 6.6.118, 6.12.60 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 4.1 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

  • Is CVE-2025-68231 actively exploited?

    No — CVE-2025-68231 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.