CVE-2025-40260

Linux Kernel 6.16-6.17.10 - Denial of Service via sched_ext Helper Kthread Creation Failure

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched_ext: Fix scx_enable() crash on helper kthread creation failure A crash was observed when the sched_ext selftests runner was terminated with Ctrl+\ while test 15 was running: NIP [c00000000028fa58] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x358/0x12b0 LR [c00000000028fa2c] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 Call Trace: scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 (unreliable) bpf_struct_ops_link_create+0x18c/0x22c __sys_bpf+0x23f8/0x3044 sys_bpf+0x2c/0x6c system_call_exception+0x124/0x320 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec kthread_run_worker() returns an ERR_PTR() on failure rather than NULL, but the current code in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() only checks for a NULL helper. Incase of failure on SIGQUIT, the error is not handled in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() and scx_enable() ends up dereferencing an error pointer. Error handling is fixed in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() to propagate PTR_ERR() into ret, so that scx_enable() jumps to the existing error path, avoiding random dereference on failure.

Scores

EPSS 0.0003
EPSS Percentile 8.0%

Details

Status published
Products (7)
linux/Kernel 6.16.0 - 6.17.10linux
Linux/Linux < 6.16
Linux/Linux 6.16
Linux/Linux 6.17.10 - 6.17.*
Linux/Linux 6.18
Linux/Linux bff3b5aec1b727b620adc7c47085592802390125 - 625e173e2a59b6cf6cbfb51c0a6bea47f3861eab
Linux/Linux bff3b5aec1b727b620adc7c47085592802390125 - 7b6216baae751369195fa3c83d434d23bcda406a
Published Dec 04, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026