CVE-2025-40272 | mm/secretmem: fix use-after-free race in fault handler

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/secretmem: fix use-after-free race in fault handler When a page fault occurs in a secret memory file created with `memfd_secret(2)`, the kernel will allocate a new folio for it, mark the underlying page as not-present in the direct map, and add it to the file mapping. If two tasks cause a fault in the same page concurrently, both could end up allocating a folio and removing the page from the direct map, but only one would succeed in adding the folio to the file mapping. The task that failed undoes the effects of its attempt by (a) freeing the folio again and (b) putting the page back into the direct map. However, by doing these two operations in this order, the page becomes available to the allocator again before it is placed back in the direct mapping. If another task attempts to allocate the page between (a) and (b), and the kernel tries to access it via the direct map, it would result in a supervisor not-present page fault. Fix the ordering to restore the direct map before the folio is freed.

Published: 2025-12-06 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-40272 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.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-40272

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 2026-01-18 0.02% 0.06% +0.04%
2 2025-12-07 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-40272

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-40272

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-40272

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2025-40272 unimportant 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-2025-40272
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40272
suse medium CVE-2025-40272 severity moderate: SUSE including 471 source package names (13.2-9.1:libsystemd0-254.23-1.1, 13.2-9.1:libudev1-254.23-1.1, …), 1013 product×package rows across 183 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, … (183 product lines)): Fixed 643, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 114, First Fixed 25. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40272/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-40272 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 178, released 157, not-affected 49, needed 8, pending 3. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-40272

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-40272

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-40272

cvelogic Threat Intelligence