In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ovl: support encoding fid from inode with no alias Dmitry Safonov reported that a WARN_ON() assertion can be trigered by userspace when calling inotify_show_fdinfo() for an overlayfs watched inode, whose dentry aliases were discarded with drop_caches. The WARN_ON() assertion in inotify_show_fdinfo() was removed, because it is possible for encoding file handle to fail for other reason, but the impact of failing to encode an overlayfs file handle goes beyond this assertion. As shown in the LTP test case mentioned in the link below, failure to encode an overlayfs file handle from a non-aliased inode also leads to failure to report an fid with FAN_DELETE_SELF fanotify events. As Dmitry notes in his analyzis of the problem, ovl_encode_fh() fails if it cannot find an alias for the inode, but this failure can be fixed. ovl_encode_fh() seldom uses the alias and in the case of non-decodable file handles, as is often the case with fanotify fid info, ovl_encode_fh() never needs to use the alias to encode a file handle. Defer finding an alias until it is actually needed so ovl_encode_fh() will not fail in the common case of FAN_DELETE_SELF fanotify events.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-21654 is rated Low Risk (25.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.19%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 0.02% | 0.19% | +0.17% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.06% | 0.02% | -0.04% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.06% | — |
Full EPSS history (6 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.5 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
1.8 | 3.6 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
unimportant | CVE-2025-21654 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-21654 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21654 |
suse
|
medium | CVE-2025-21654 severity moderate: SUSE including 52 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 268 product×package rows across 46 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP5, … (46 product lines)): Known Not Affected 242, Fixed 26. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21654/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-21654 medium priority: Ubuntu including 150 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1487 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1097, ignored 147, released 128, not-affected 115. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-21654 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.6, < 6.6.74 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.7, < 6.12.10 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:* |