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CVE-2025-71202
iommu/sva: invalidate stale IOTLB entries for kernel address space
Published 2026-02-14 (8 months ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem arch/x86. Debian urgency: not yet assigned.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2025-71202 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | vulnerable | 6.1.190-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series bookworm tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for bookworm have historically landed a median of 23 days after publication. |
| Debian 13trixie | vulnerable | 6.12.113-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series trixie tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for trixie have historically landed a median of 11 days after publication. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 6.18.8-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.18.8-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 6.18.8-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.18.8-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
Introduce a new IOMMU interface to flush IOTLB paging cache entries for the CPU kernel address space. This interface is invoked from the x86 architecture code that manages combined user and kernel page tables, specifically before any kernel page table page is freed and reused. This addresses the main issue with vfree() which is a common occurrence and can be triggered by unprivileged users. While this resolves the primary problem, it doesn't address some extremely rare case related to memory unplug of memory that was present as reserved memory at boot, which cannot be triggered by unprivileged users. The discussion can be found at the link below. Enable SVA on x86 architecture since the IOMMU can now receive notification to flush the paging cache before freeing the CPU kernel page table pages.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
arch/x86/Kconfig
drivers/iommu/iommu-sva.c
include/linux/iommu.h
mm/pgtable-generic.c
- What this is
- X86 ARCHITECTURE (32-BIT AND 64-BIT)MAINTAINERS section matched on arch/x86/ · linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org · Maintained
Check it on the machine
grep -w CONFIG_IOMMU_SVA /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this, but not on every flavour. At least one release below builds the code on some of its kernel flavours and not on others, so the answer depends on the architecture and flavour installed. The build rule could not be established for 1 release, so nothing is claimed about those.
- bookworm?
- trixieYnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt/arm64, armel/rpi, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, armhf/rt/armmp, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, riscv64/riscv64, s390x/s390x
- forky, sidYnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt-arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, loong64/loong64, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, riscv64/riscv64, s390x/s390x
- ?
- not established - no Makefile entry for the affected file
- Y
- built in where it is built at all; some flavours do not build it
Where a release above reads "not established", no build rule for the affected file was found in that release's kernel tree. That is a gap in this lookup, not a finding that the code is absent.
- Build switch
- CONFIG_IOMMU_SVA
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-02-14 (8 months ago)source
- CVSS
- 8.8 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:Hsource recompute it - Attack vector
- local (AV:L)source
- EPSS
- 0.13%, higher than 2.5% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- not yet assignedsource
- Subsystem
- arch/x86
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 4.4 | 6.18.7 | 9f0a7ab700f8 |
| 4.4 | 6.19 | e37d5a2d60a3 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
Quoted from the kernel CNA's own scoring file, word for word. A highlighted metric carries the most severe value CVSS v3.1 defines for it, which is what pushes the score up. source
- AV:LAttack vector, local
- An attacker reaches the flaw locally by opening an SVA-enabled userspace accelerator device and submitting PASID-tagged DMA descriptors that force walks of chosen kernel virtual addresses.
- AC:LAttack complexity, low
- On an affected x86 SVA deployment, the attacker controls the device requests and can repeatedly drive unprivileged vfree activity, allocator spraying, and page reuse without relying on an uncontrollable race.
- PR:LPrivileges required, low
- SVA user queues are intended for ordinary processes; after device-node access is granted, the binding and descriptor-submission paths require no capability on hardware marked safe for userspace submission.
- UI:NUser interaction, none
- The attacker can bind its own address space, prime the IOMMU paging-structure cache, and trigger reclamation and reuse without another user's involvement.
- S:CScope, changed
- The flaw bypasses the PASID/IOMMU DMA isolation boundary, allowing a process-scoped SVA context to access host physical memory outside its security authority.
- C:HConfidentiality impact, high
- A reused page-table page can contain attacker-controlled entries that the IOMMU interprets as translations, enabling arbitrary physical-memory DMA reads of kernel or other-process data.
- I:HIntegrity impact, high
- The forged translation path can enable arbitrary physical-memory DMA writes and privilege escalation; page walks can also write Accessed and Dirty bits into freed memory.
- A:HAvailability impact, high
- Arbitrary physical-memory DMA writes and page-table write-after-free can corrupt critical kernel state, causing a kernel crash, panic, or system hang.