In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: timers/migration: Fix off-by-one root mis-connection Before attaching a new root to the old root, the children counter of the new root is checked to verify that only the upcoming CPU's top group have been connected to it. However since the recently added commit b729cc1ec21a ("timers/migration: Fix another race between hotplug and idle entry/exit") this check is not valid anymore because the old root is pre-accounted as a child to the new root. Therefore after connecting the upcoming CPU's top group to the new root, the children count to be expected must be 2 and not 1 anymore. This omission results in the old root to not be connected to the new root. Then eventually the system may run with more than one top level, which defeats the purpose of a single idle migrator. Also the old root is pre-accounted but not connected upon the new root creation. But it can be connected to the new root later on. Therefore the old root may be accounted twice to the new root. The propagation of such overcommit can end up creating a double final top-level root with a groupmask incorrectly initialized. Although harmless given that the final top level roots will never have a parent to walk up to, this oddity opportunistically reported the core issue: WARNING: CPU: 8 PID: 0 at kernel/time/timer_migration.c:543 tmigr_requires_handle_remote CPU: 8 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/8 RIP: 0010:tmigr_requires_handle_remote Call Trace: <IRQ> ? tmigr_requires_handle_remote ? hrtimer_run_queues update_process_times tick_periodic tick_handle_periodic __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt </IRQ> Fix the problem by taking the old root into account in the children count of the new root so the connection is not omitted. Also warn when more than one top level group exists to better detect similar issues in the future.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-21813 is rated Low Risk (28.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). 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 | 2025-02-28 | — | 0.04% | — |
Full EPSS history (1 record 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-2025-21813 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-2025-21813 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21813 |
suse
|
medium | CVE-2025-21813 severity moderate: SUSE including 26 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 198 product×package rows across 40 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP5, … (40 product lines)): Known Not Affected 198. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21813/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-21813 medium priority: Ubuntu including 150 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1483 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1093, ignored 147, not-affected 145, released 98. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-21813 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.12.11, < 6.12.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.13.1, < 6.13.3 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.13 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:-:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |