In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: guard against EA inode refcount underflow in xattr update syzkaller found a path where ext4_xattr_inode_update_ref() reads an EA inode refcount that is already <= 0 and then applies ref_change (often -1). That lets the refcount underflow and we proceed with a bogus value, triggering errors like: EXT4-fs error: EA inode <n> ref underflow: ref_count=-1 ref_change=-1 EXT4-fs warning: ea_inode dec ref err=-117 Make the invariant explicit: if the current refcount is non-positive, treat this as on-disk corruption, emit ext4_error_inode(), and fail the operation with -EFSCORRUPTED instead of updating the refcount. Delete the WARN_ONCE() as negative refcounts are now impossible; keep error reporting in ext4_error_inode(). This prevents the underflow and the follow-on orphan/cleanup churn.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-40190 is rated Low Risk (19.3/100): 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.
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 | 2025-12-18 | 0.02% | 0.06% | +0.04% |
| 2 | 2025-11-13 | — | 0.02% | — |
Full EPSS history (2 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2025-40190 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 6. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-40190 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40190 |
suse
|
medium | CVE-2025-40190 severity moderate: SUSE including 399 source package names (13.2-9.1:libsystemd0-254.23-1.1, 13.2-9.1:libudev1-254.23-1.1, …), 743 product×package rows across 117 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, … (117 product lines)): Fixed 431, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 56, First Fixed 25. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40190/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-40190 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, needed 214, ignored 181. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-40190 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| No affected products in dataset. | |||