CVE-2025-68250
Awaiting Analysis Awaiting Analysis - Queue
BaseFortify

Publication date: 2025-12-16

Last updated on: 2025-12-18

Assigner: kernel.org

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hung_task: fix warnings caused by unaligned lock pointers The blocker tracking mechanism assumes that lock pointers are at least 4-byte aligned to use their lower bits for type encoding. However, as reported by Eero Tamminen, some architectures like m68k only guarantee 2-byte alignment of 32-bit values. This breaks the assumption and causes two related WARN_ON_ONCE checks to trigger. To fix this, the runtime checks are adjusted to silently ignore any lock that is not 4-byte aligned, effectively disabling the feature in such cases and avoiding the related warnings. Thanks to Geert Uytterhoeven for bisecting!
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
Probability:
Percentile:
Meta Information
Published
2025-12-16
Last Modified
2025-12-18
Generated
2026-05-07
AI Q&A
2025-12-16
EPSS Evaluated
2026-05-05
NVD
EUVD
Affected Vendors & Products
Currently, no data is known.
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
CWE Icon
KEV
KEV Icon
CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN
Attack-Flow Graph
AI Powered Q&A
Can you explain this vulnerability to me?

This vulnerability involves the Linux kernel's blocker tracking mechanism, which assumes that lock pointers are at least 4-byte aligned to encode type information in their lower bits. However, on some architectures like m68k, 32-bit values are only guaranteed 2-byte alignment, breaking this assumption and causing warnings (WARN_ON_ONCE) to trigger. The fix adjusts runtime checks to ignore any lock that is not 4-byte aligned, disabling the feature in those cases and preventing the warnings.


How can this vulnerability impact me? :

This vulnerability causes warnings in the Linux kernel due to misaligned lock pointers on certain architectures, which could lead to unnecessary log noise or debugging difficulties. The fix disables the blocker tracking feature for unaligned locks to avoid these warnings, so the impact is primarily related to kernel diagnostics rather than security or functionality.


Ask Our AI Assistant
Need more information? Ask your question to get an AI reply (Powered by our expertise)
0/70
EPSS Chart