CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-40040 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/ksm: fix flag-dropping behavior in ksm_madvise syzkaller discovered the following crash: (kernel BUG) [ 44.607039] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 44.607422] kernel BUG at mm/userfaultfd.c:2067! [ 44.608148] Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC KASAN NOPTI [ 44.608814] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 2475 Comm: reproducer Not tainted 6.16.0-rc6 #1 PREEMPT(none) [ 44.609635] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 44.610695] RIP: 0010:userfaultfd_release_all+0x3a8/0x460 <snip other registers, drop unreliable trace> [ 44.617726] Call Trace: [ 44.617926] <TASK> [ 44.619284] userfaultfd_release+0xef/0x1b0 [ 44.620976] __fput+0x3f9/0xb60 [ 44.621240] fput_close_sync+0x110/0x210 [ 44.622222] __x64_sys_close+0x8f/0x120 [ 44.622530] do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x2f0 [ 44.622840] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [ 44.623244] RIP: 0033:0x7f365bb3f227 Kernel panics because it detects UFFD inconsistency during userfaultfd_release_all(). Specifically, a VMA which has a valid pointer to vma->vm_userfaultfd_ctx, but no UFFD flags in vma->vm_…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2025-10-28
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel

Showing 1 representative product identities from 7 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

General vulnerability remediation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Confirm the affected component, deployment paths, reachable interfaces, and enabled features from inventories and configuration, without probing production destructively.
  • Compare the advisory's affected conditions with the repository lockfiles, build manifests, artifacts, and runtime inventory.
  • Identify data sensitivity, trust boundaries, and privilege level for every confirmed affected deployment.

Remediate safely

  • Apply a vendor-supported fix or remove the affected component or feature; record the selected change and its source in the repository.
  • Update direct and transitive dependency locks, generated artifacts, deployment manifests, and asset inventories together.
  • Add a regression test for the documented unsafe condition using inert inputs and preserve rollback instructions.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.