In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/vt-d: Fix suspicious RCU usage Commit <d74169ceb0d2> ("iommu/vt-d: Allocate DMAR fault interrupts locally") moved the call to enable_drhd_fault_handling() to a code path that does not hold any lock while traversing the drhd list. Fix it by ensuring the dmar_global_lock lock is held when traversing the drhd list. Without this fix, the following warning is triggered: ============================= WARNING: suspicious RCU usage 6.14.0-rc3 #55 Not tainted ----------------------------- drivers/iommu/intel/dmar.c:2046 RCU-list traversed in non-reader section!! other info that might help us debug this: rcu_scheduler_active = 1, debug_locks = 1 2 locks held by cpuhp/1/23: #0: ffffffff84a67c50 (cpu_hotplug_lock){++++}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0 #1: ffffffff84a6a380 (cpuhp_state-up){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0 stack backtrace: CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 23 Comm: cpuhp/1 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc3 #55 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0xb7/0xd0 lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x159/0x1f0 ? __pfx_enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x10/0x10 enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x151/0x180 cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x1df/0x990 cpuhp_thread_fun+0x1ea/0x2c0 smpboot_thread_fn+0x1f5/0x2e0 ? __pfx_smpboot_thread_fn+0x10/0x10 kthread+0x12a/0x2d0 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork+0x4a/0x60 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Holding the lock in enable_drhd_fault_handling() triggers a lockdep splat about a possible deadlock between dmar_global_lock and cpu_hotplug_lock. This is avoided by not holding dmar_global_lock when calling iommu_device_register(), which initiates the device probe process.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-21876 is rated Low Risk (22.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). 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 | 2025-03-28 | — | 0.02% | — |
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-2025-21876 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-2025-21876 |
redhat
|
low | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21876 |
suse
|
medium | — | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21876/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-21876 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 144, released 99. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-21876 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.10, < 6.12.18 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.13, < 6.13.6 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.14 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:* |