In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: avoid NULL pointer dereference if no valid extent tree [BUG] Syzbot reported a crash with the following call trace: BTRFS info (device loop0): scrub: started on devid 1 BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000208 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 106e70067 P4D 106e70067 PUD 107143067 PMD 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 689 Comm: repro Kdump: loaded Tainted: G O 6.13.0-rc4-custom+ #206 Tainted: [O]=OOT_MODULE Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022 RIP: 0010:find_first_extent_item+0x26/0x1f0 [btrfs] Call Trace: <TASK> scrub_find_fill_first_stripe+0x13d/0x3b0 [btrfs] scrub_simple_mirror+0x175/0x260 [btrfs] scrub_stripe+0x5d4/0x6c0 [btrfs] scrub_chunk+0xbb/0x170 [btrfs] scrub_enumerate_chunks+0x2f4/0x5f0 [btrfs] btrfs_scrub_dev+0x240/0x600 [btrfs] btrfs_ioctl+0x1dc8/0x2fa0 [btrfs] ? do_sys_openat2+0xa5/0xf0 __x64_sys_ioctl+0x97/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x4f/0x120 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e </TASK> [CAUSE] The reproducer is using a corrupted image where extent tree root is corrupted, thus forcing to use "rescue=all,ro" mount option to mount the image. Then it triggered a scrub, but since scrub relies on extent tree to find where the data/metadata extents are, scrub_find_fill_first_stripe() relies on an non-empty extent root. But unfortunately scrub_find_fill_first_stripe() doesn't really expect an NULL pointer for extent root, it use extent_root to grab fs_info and triggered a NULL pointer dereference. [FIX] Add an extra check for a valid extent root at the beginning of scrub_find_fill_first_stripe(). The new error path is introduced by 42437a6386ff ("btrfs: introduce mount option rescue=ignorebadroots"), but that's pretty old, and later commit b979547513ff ("btrfs: scrub: introduce helper to find and fill sector info for a scrub_stripe") changed how we do scrub. So for kernels older than 6.6, the fix will need manual backport.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-21658 is rated Low Risk (25.3/100): 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 | 0.03% | 0.19% | +0.16% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.06% | 0.03% | -0.03% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.06% | — |
Full EPSS history (4 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] |
| 5.5 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
1.8 | 3.6 | 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
unimportant | CVE-2025-21658 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-21658 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21658 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21658/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-21658 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 147, released 136, not-affected 90, needed 33. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-21658 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 5.11, < 6.6.72 | 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:*:*:*:*:*:* |