{"id":"CVE-2025-40040","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2025-40040","generatedAt":"2026-10-28T03:28:00.363Z","title":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/ksm: fix flag-dropping behavior in ksm_madvise syzkaller discovered the following crash: (kernel BUG) [ 44.607039] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 44.607422] kernel BUG at…","description":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nmm/ksm: fix flag-dropping behavior in ksm_madvise\n\nsyzkaller discovered the following crash: (kernel BUG)\n\n[   44.607039] ------------[ cut here ]------------\n[   44.607422] kernel BUG at mm/userfaultfd.c:2067!\n[   44.608148] Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC KASAN NOPTI\n[   44.608814] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 2475 Comm: reproducer Not tainted 6.16.0-rc6 #1 PREEMPT(none)\n[   44.609635] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014\n[   44.610695] RIP: 0010:userfaultfd_release_all+0x3a8/0x460\n\n<snip other registers, drop unreliable trace>\n\n[   44.617726] Call Trace:\n[   44.617926]  <TASK>\n[   44.619284]  userfaultfd_release+0xef/0x1b0\n[   44.620976]  __fput+0x3f9/0xb60\n[   44.621240]  fput_close_sync+0x110/0x210\n[   44.622222]  __x64_sys_close+0x8f/0x120\n[   44.622530]  do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x2f0\n[   44.622840]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e\n[   44.623244] RIP: 0033:0x7f365bb3f227\n\nKernel panics because it detects UFFD inconsistency during\nuserfaultfd_release_all().  Specifically, a VMA which has a valid pointer\nto vma->vm_userfaultfd_ctx, but no UFFD flags in vma->vm_flags.\n\nThe inconsistency is caused in ksm_madvise(): when user calls madvise()\nwith MADV_UNMEARGEABLE on a VMA that is registered for UFFD in MINOR mode,\nit accidentally clears all flags stored in the upper 32 bits of\nvma->vm_flags.\n\nAssuming x86_64 kernel build, unsigned long is 64-bit and unsigned int and\nint are 32-bit wide.  This setup causes the following mishap during the &=\n~VM_MERGEABLE assignment.\n\nVM_MERGEABLE is a 32-bit constant of type unsigned int, 0x8000'0000. \nAfter ~ is applied, it becomes 0x7fff'ffff unsigned int, which is then\npromoted to unsigned long before the & operation.  This promotion fills\nupper 32 bits with leading 0s, as we're doing unsigned conversion (and\neven for a signed conversion, this wouldn't help as the leading bit is 0).\n& operation thus ends up AND-ing vm_flags with 0x0000'0000'7fff'ffff\ninstead of intended 0xffff'ffff'7fff'ffff and hence accidentally clears\nthe upper 32-bits of its value.\n\nFix it by changing `VM_MERGEABLE` constant to unsigned long, using the\nBIT() macro.\n\nNote: other VM_* flags are not affected: This only happens to the\nVM_MERGEABLE flag, as the other VM_* flags are all constants of type int\nand after ~ operation, they end up with leading 1 and are thus converted\nto unsigned long with leading 1s.\n\nNote 2:\nAfter commit 31defc3b01d9 (\"userfaultfd: remove (VM_)BUG_ON()s\"), this is\nno longer a kernel BUG, but a WARNING at the same place:\n\n[   45.595973] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 2474 at mm/userfaultfd.c:2067\n\nbut the root-cause (flag-drop) remains the same.\n\n[akpm@linux-foundation.org: rust bindgen wasn't able to handle BIT(), from Miguel]","published":"2025-10-28T12:15:38.000Z","lastModified":"2026-10-19T21:10:00.000Z","status":"Modified","sourceIdentifier":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67","cvss":{"version":"3.1","score":5.5,"severity":"MEDIUM","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"},"cwe":[],"affected":["linux/linux kernel"],"epss":{"score":0.00376,"percentile":0.31337,"date":"2026-10-26","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"low","text":"Lower severity and a low EPSS score (0.38%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/41cb9fd904fe0c39d52e82dd84dc3c96b7aa9693","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/76385629f45740b7888f8fcd83bde955b10f61fe","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/788e5385d0ff69cdba1cabccb9dab8d9647b9239","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/850f1ea245bdc0ce6a3fd36bfb80d8cf9647cb71","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/92b82e232b8d8b116ac6e57aeae7a6033db92c60","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac50c6e0a8f91a02b681af81abb2362fbb67cc18","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b69f19244c2b6475c8a6eb72f0fb0d53509e48cd","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f04aad36a07cc17b7a5d5b9a2d386ce6fae63e93","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-40040","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}