CVE-2025-40104 | ixgbevf: fix mailbox API compatibility by negotiating supported features

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ixgbevf: fix mailbox API compatibility by negotiating supported features There was backward compatibility in the terms of mailbox API. Various drivers from various OSes supporting 10G adapters from Intel portfolio could easily negotiate mailbox API. This convention has been broken since introducing API 1.4. Commit 0062e7cc955e ("ixgbevf: add VF IPsec offload code") added support for IPSec which is specific only for the kernel ixgbe driver. None of the rest of the Intel 10G PF/VF drivers supports it. And actually lack of support was not included in the IPSec implementation - there were no such code paths. No possibility to negotiate support for the feature was introduced along with introduction of the feature itself. Commit 339f28964147 ("ixgbevf: Add support for new mailbox communication between PF and VF") increasing API version to 1.5 did the same - it introduced code supported specifically by the PF ESX driver. It altered API version for the VF driver in the same time not touching the version defined for the PF ixgbe driver. It led to additional discrepancies, as the code provided within API 1.6 cannot be supported for Linux ixgbe driver as it causes crashes. The issue was noticed some time ago and mitigated by Jake within the commit d0725312adf5 ("ixgbevf: stop attempting IPSEC offload on Mailbox API 1.5"). As a result we have regression for IPsec support and after increasing API to version 1.6 ixgbevf driver stopped to support ESX MBX. To fix this mess add new mailbox op asking PF driver about supported features. Basing on a response determine whether to set support for IPSec and ESX-specific enhanced mailbox. New mailbox op, for compatibility purposes, must be added within new API revision, as API version of OOT PF & VF drivers is already increased to 1.6 and doesn't incorporate features negotiate op. Features negotiation mechanism gives possibility to be extended with new features when needed in the future.

Published: 2025-10-30 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-40104 is rated Low Risk (17.7/100): low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.06%). Mandatory action: Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-40104

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 2026-04-09 0.04% 0.06% +0.01%
2 2026-03-28 0.05% 0.04% -0.01%
3 2026-03-01 0.05%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-40104

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-40104

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-40104

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-40104 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (linux, linux-6.1), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-40104
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40104
suse medium CVE-2025-40104 severity moderate: SUSE including 361 source package names (13.2-6.19:libjitterentropy3-3.4.1-3.1, 13.2-6.19:libopenssl3-3.1.4-6.1, …), 650 product×package rows across 114 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, … (114 product lines)): Fixed 368, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 30, First Fixed 21. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40104/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-40104 medium priority: Ubuntu including 157 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1405 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1010, ignored 177, released 127, needed 62, not-affected 27, pending 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-40104

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-40104

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-40104

cvelogic Threat Intelligence