CVE-2025-37945
Medium · 5.5CVSS
5.5
EPSS
0.2%
Published
May 20, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in how the Linux kernel handles network hardware during sleep and wake can cause network connections to break or the system to crash after resuming from power-saving modes.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Low Privilege
- Complexity
- Low
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
During MDIO-bus-managed suspend/resume paths, mdio_bus_phy_suspend() fails to invoke phy_stop_machine() when a PHY uses phylink because adjust_link is NULL; on resume the state machine remains running, violating the expected PHY_HALTED/PHY_READY/PHY_UP states and triggering WARN_ON or subsequent kernel instability in affected network drivers.
Why it matters to the business
Systems may experience network interface instability or crashes after power events such as sleep or hibernation, leading to unplanned downtime for servers and network appliances that rely on the affected Linux kernel networking code.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local access triggers a suspend/resume cycle on a system using an affected MAC driver with phylink-managed PHYs; the missing state-machine stop leaves the PHY in an unexpected state, causing the resume path to hit the warning and potentially corrupt or crash kernel network handling.
How to fix it
Upgrade the linux-aws-5.4 package to version 5.4.0-1135.145~18.04.1 or later on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS systems; apply equivalent mainline or distribution backports that condition the PM state-machine stop on the presence of the default phy_link_change callback.
How to confirm the fix worked
After patching, confirm the fixed kernel version is running, then exercise suspend/resume cycles while monitoring dmesg for absence of the previous WARN_ON in mdio_bus_phy_resume and verify network interfaces recover cleanly.
Typical attack path
- Obtain local execution on a Linux system using an affected phylink driver
- Initiate a suspend or hibernation event
- Trigger resume or wake
- Observe kernel warning or crash in the PHY resume path
How to detect it
Review kernel logs around suspend/resume events for the specific WARN_ON string referencing phydev state in mdio_bus_phy_resume; inspect crash dumps or kernel panics occurring immediately after resume on systems with phylink network drivers.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize patching linux-aws-5.4 systems within normal change windows given the local-only impact
- Test suspend/resume behavior on representative hardware before broad rollout
- Monitor upstream stable kernel releases for additional related phylink PM fixes
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: phy: allow MDIO bus PM ops to start/stop state machine for phylink-controlled PHY DSA has 2 kinds of drivers: 1. Those who call dsa_switch_suspend() and dsa_switch_resume() from their device PM ops: qca8k-8xxx, bcm_sf2, microchip ksz 2. Those who don't: all others. The above methods should be optional. For type 1, dsa_switch_suspend() calls dsa_user_suspend() -> phylink_stop(), and dsa_switch_resume() calls dsa_user_resume() -> phylink_start(). These seem good candidates for setting mac_managed_pm = true because that is essentially its definition [1], but that does not seem to be the biggest problem for now, and is not what this change focuses on. Talking strictly about the 2nd category of DSA drivers here (which do not have MAC managed PM, meaning that for their attached PHYs, mdio_bus_phy_suspend() and mdio_bus_phy_resume() should run in full), I have noticed that the following warning from mdio_bus_phy_resume() is triggered: WARN_ON(phydev->state != PHY_HALTED && phydev->state != PHY_READY && phydev->state != PHY_UP); because the PHY state machine is running. It's running as a result of a previous dsa_user_open() -> ... -> phylink_start() -> phy_start() having been initiated by the user. The previous mdio_bus_phy_suspend() was supposed to have called phy_stop_machine(), but it didn't. So this is why the PHY is in state PHY_NOLINK by the time mdio_bus_phy_resume() runs. mdio_bus_phy_suspend() did not call phy_stop_machine() because for phylink, the phydev->adjust_link function pointer is NULL. This seems a technicality introduced by commit fddd91016d16 ("phylib: fix PAL state machine restart on resume"). That commit was written before phylink existed, and was intended to avoid crashing with consumer drivers which don't use the PHY state machine - phylink always does, when using a PHY. But phylink itself has historically not been developed with suspend/resume in mind, and apparently not tested too much in that scenario, allowing this bug to exist unnoticed for so long. Plus, prior to the WARN_ON(), it would have likely been invisible. This issue is not in fact restricted to type 2 DSA drivers (according to the above ad-hoc classification), but can be extrapolated to any MAC driver with phylink and MDIO-bus-managed PHY PM ops. DSA is just where the issue was reported. Assuming mac_managed_pm is set correctly, a quick search indicates the following other drivers might be affected: $ grep -Zlr PHYLINK_NETDEV drivers/ | xargs -0 grep -L mac_managed_pm drivers/net/ethernet/atheros/ag71xx.c drivers/net/ethernet/microchip/sparx5/sparx5_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/microchip/lan966x/lan966x_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/dpaa2/dpaa2-mac.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/fs_enet/fs_enet-main.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/dpaa/dpaa_eth.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/ucc_geth.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/enetc/enetc_pf_common.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/mvpp2/mvpp2_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/mvneta.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/prestera/prestera_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/mediatek/mtk_eth_soc.c drivers/net/ethernet/altera/altera_tse_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/wangxun/txgbe/txgbe_phy.c drivers/net/ethernet/meta/fbnic/fbnic_phylink.c drivers/net/ethernet/tehuti/tn40_phy.c drivers/net/ethernet/mscc/ocelot_net.c Make the existing conditions dependent on the PHY device having a phydev->phy_link_change() implementation equal to the default phy_link_change() provided by phylib. Otherwise, we implicitly know that the phydev has the phylink-provided phylink_phy_change() callback, and when phylink is used, the PHY state machine always needs to be stopped/ started on the suspend/resume path. The code is structured as such that if phydev->phy_link_change() is absent, it is a matter of time until the kernel will crash - no need to further complicate the test. Thus, for the situation where the PM is not managed b ---truncated---
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:13 | linux | 0 | 6.12.25-1 |
| Linux | Kernel | 6.0.0 | 6.12.24 |
| Linux | Kernel | 6.0.0 | 6.6.122 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6-RT_Update_13 | 0 | 1-150600.1.5.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_13 | 0 | 1-150600.13.6.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5.150600.12.26.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-source-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.5.150600.12.26.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.2 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.43.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.44.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4 |
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