CVE-2025-68262
- Published: 2025-12-16T15:15:55.697
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
crypto: zstd – fix double-free in per-CPU stream cleanup
The crypto/zstd module has a double-free bug that occurs when multiple
tfms are allocated and freed.
The issue happens because zstd_streams (per-CPU contexts) are freed in
zstd_exit() during every tfm destruction, rather than being managed at
the module level. When multiple tfms exist, each tfm exit attempts to
free the same shared per-CPU streams, resulting in a double-free.
This leads to a stack trace similar to:
BUG: Bad page state in process kworker/u16:1 pfn:106fd93
page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x106fd93
flags: 0x17ffffc0000000(node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1fffff)
page_type: 0xffffffff()
raw: 0017ffffc0000000 dead000000000100 dead000000000122 0000000000000000
raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000
page dumped because: nonzero entire_mapcount
Modules linked in: …
CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 2506 Comm: kworker/u16:1 Kdump: loaded Tainted: G B
Hardware name: …
Workqueue: btrfs-delalloc btrfs_work_helper
Call Trace:
dump_stack_lvl+0x5d/0x80
bad_page+0x71/0xd0
free_unref_page_prepare+0x24e/0x490
free_unref_page+0x60/0x170
crypto_acomp_free_streams+0x5d/0xc0
crypto_acomp_exit_tfm+0x23/0x50
crypto_destroy_tfm+0x60/0xc0
…
Change the lifecycle management of zstd_streams to free the streams only
once during module cleanup.
Related CVE by CWE
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How to fix CVE-2025-68262
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: zstd – fix double-free in per-CPU stream cleanup The crypto/zstd module has a double-free bug that occurs when multiple tfms are allocated and freed. The issue happens because zstd_streams (per-CPU contexts) are freed in zstd_exit() during every tfm destruction, rather than being managed at […]
Exploit Difficulty: HARD
⏱️ Time to exploit: > 4 hours
🛠️ Required skills: Advanced security expertise
💰 Public exploits: Rare or not public
How to Fix:
- Check if you're running the affected product
- Update to the latest patched version
- If patching is not immediately possible: restrict network exposure, apply least-privilege access
- Test the fix in a staging environment first
- Review logs for signs of exploitation
- Monitor for IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)
- Enable automatic security updates
- Set up vulnerability monitoring
- Review and harden security configurations
Exploit Difficulty Assessment
Vulnerability Timeline
CVE details first published to NVD database
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