Cloudanix VulnDB

CVE-2025-38234

High · 7.8

CVSS

7.8

EPSS

0.2%

Published

Jul 4, 2025

CISA due date

—

Cloudanix analysis

Schedule a fix SSVC: Track

A flaw in the Linux kernel's handling of certain scheduled tasks can cause the whole computer to crash unexpectedly.

Exploitation
Local Privilege
Attacker needs
Low Privilege
Complexity
High
Impact
Denial Of Service
Component
OS kernel
Class
Race Condition
Remediation
Upgrade
Effort
Medium
Patch risk
Medium

What it actually does

Race condition in Linux kernel real-time scheduler push_rt_task during double runqueue locking and task migration allows a task to be migrated, executed, and re-queued such that on_rq checks pass incorrectly, resulting in scheduler state corruption, BUG_ON assertions, NULL dereferences, and kernel panics.

Why it matters to the business

Linux systems may suffer repeated kernel crashes and unexpected reboots causing service downtime, particularly in containerized or real-time workloads; widespread kernel prevalence increases exposure across many distributions though exploitation remains uncommon.

How an attack unfolds

A local attacker runs code that schedules real-time tasks and forces migration between CPUs while simultaneously triggering wakeups, exploiting the window where pushable task list checks are bypassed after migration and re-queuing, leading to invalid scheduler state; observed in contexts such as VMSCAPE and container privilege escalation attempts on Linux.

How to fix it

Upgrade the Linux kernel to commit 9f6022b2573ae068793810db719e131df3ded405 or later; for nats-fips update to version 0.2.3-r1.

How to confirm the fix worked

Verify running kernel contains commit 9f6022b2573ae068793810db719e131df3ded405, reproduce RT task migration workloads under load, and confirm absence of scheduler BUG_ON or panic signatures in dmesg.

Typical attack path

  1. Obtain local code execution on Linux host
  2. Create and schedule real-time tasks across CPUs
  3. Force concurrent task migration and ttwu wakeup
  4. Trigger scheduler path that hits corrupted runqueue state
  5. Cause kernel BUG, page fault, or queue corruption panic

How to detect it

Search kernel logs and dmesg for scheduler BUG messages originating from kernel/sched/rt.c, NULL pointer dereferences during pick_next_task_rt or __schedule, and queue corruption errors; correlate with process activity involving futex or RT task wakeups.

  • kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1616
  • BUG_ON(idx >= MAX_RT_PRIO)
  • kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1861
  • BUG_ON(rq->cpu != task_cpu(p))
  • kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1055
  • BUG_ON(!rq->nr_running)
  • pick_next_task_rt
  • dequeue_pushable_task

What your security team should do

  • Apply kernel updates to the listed fixed commits immediately on systems using real-time scheduling
  • Monitor kernel logs for scheduler-related panics as an interim detection measure
  • Limit real-time scheduling privileges to trusted processes where feasible

The record

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/rt: Fix race in push_rt_task Overview ======== When a CPU chooses to call push_rt_task and picks a task to push to another CPU's runqueue then it will call find_lock_lowest_rq method which would take a double lock on both CPUs' runqueues. If one of the locks aren't readily available, it may lead to dropping the current runqueue lock and reacquiring both the locks at once. During this window it is possible that the task is already migrated and is running on some other CPU. These cases are already handled. However, if the task is migrated and has already been executed and another CPU is now trying to wake it up (ttwu) such that it is queued again on the runqeue (on_rq is 1) and also if the task was run by the same CPU, then the current checks will pass even though the task was migrated out and is no longer in the pushable tasks list. Crashes ======= This bug resulted in quite a few flavors of crashes triggering kernel panics with various crash signatures such as assert failures, page faults, null pointer dereferences, and queue corruption errors all coming from scheduler itself. Some of the crashes: -> kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1616! BUG_ON(idx >= MAX_RT_PRIO) Call Trace: ? __die_body+0x1a/0x60 ? die+0x2a/0x50 ? do_trap+0x85/0x100 ? pick_next_task_rt+0x6e/0x1d0 ? do_error_trap+0x64/0xa0 ? pick_next_task_rt+0x6e/0x1d0 ? exc_invalid_op+0x4c/0x60 ? pick_next_task_rt+0x6e/0x1d0 ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x12/0x20 ? pick_next_task_rt+0x6e/0x1d0 __schedule+0x5cb/0x790 ? update_ts_time_stats+0x55/0x70 schedule_idle+0x1e/0x40 do_idle+0x15e/0x200 cpu_startup_entry+0x19/0x20 start_secondary+0x117/0x160 secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0xb0/0xbb -> BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000c0 Call Trace: ? __die_body+0x1a/0x60 ? no_context+0x183/0x350 ? __warn+0x8a/0xe0 ? exc_page_fault+0x3d6/0x520 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x1e/0x30 ? pick_next_task_rt+0xb5/0x1d0 ? pick_next_task_rt+0x8c/0x1d0 __schedule+0x583/0x7e0 ? update_ts_time_stats+0x55/0x70 schedule_idle+0x1e/0x40 do_idle+0x15e/0x200 cpu_startup_entry+0x19/0x20 start_secondary+0x117/0x160 secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0xb0/0xbb -> BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffff9464daea5900 kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1861! BUG_ON(rq->cpu != task_cpu(p)) -> kernel BUG at kernel/sched/rt.c:1055! BUG_ON(!rq->nr_running) Call Trace: ? __die_body+0x1a/0x60 ? die+0x2a/0x50 ? do_trap+0x85/0x100 ? dequeue_top_rt_rq+0xa2/0xb0 ? do_error_trap+0x64/0xa0 ? dequeue_top_rt_rq+0xa2/0xb0 ? exc_invalid_op+0x4c/0x60 ? dequeue_top_rt_rq+0xa2/0xb0 ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x12/0x20 ? dequeue_top_rt_rq+0xa2/0xb0 dequeue_rt_entity+0x1f/0x70 dequeue_task_rt+0x2d/0x70 __schedule+0x1a8/0x7e0 ? blk_finish_plug+0x25/0x40 schedule+0x3c/0xb0 futex_wait_queue_me+0xb6/0x120 futex_wait+0xd9/0x240 do_futex+0x344/0xa90 ? get_mm_exe_file+0x30/0x60 ? audit_exe_compare+0x58/0x70 ? audit_filter_rules.constprop.26+0x65e/0x1220 __x64_sys_futex+0x148/0x1f0 do_syscall_64+0x30/0x80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x62/0xc7 -> BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffff8cf3608bc2c0 Call Trace: ? __die_body+0x1a/0x60 ? no_context+0x183/0x350 ? spurious_kernel_fault+0x171/0x1c0 ? exc_page_fault+0x3b6/0x520 ? plist_check_list+0x15/0x40 ? plist_check_list+0x2e/0x40 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x1e/0x30 ? _cond_resched+0x15/0x30 ? futex_wait_queue_me+0xc8/0x120 ? futex_wait+0xd9/0x240 ? try_to_wake_up+0x1b8/0x490 ? futex_wake+0x78/0x160 ? do_futex+0xcd/0xa90 ? plist_check_list+0x15/0x40 ? plist_check_list+0x2e/0x40 ? plist_del+0x6a/0xd0 ? plist_check_list+0x15/0x40 ? plist_check_list+0x2e/0x40 ? dequeue_pushable_task+0x20/0x70 ? __schedule+0x382/0x7e0 ? asm_sysvec_reschedule_i ---truncated---

Affected packages

Ecosystem Package Introduced Fixed
Chainguard hyperv-daemons-6.12 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-aws-6.12-boot-installed 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-aws-6.12-fips-boot-installed 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-aws-6.12-headers 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-aws-6.12-modules 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-azure-6.12-boot-installed 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-azure-6.12-fips-boot-installed 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-azure-6.12-headers 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-azure-6.12-modules 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-gcp-6.12-boot-installed 0 6.12.58-r0
Chainguard linux-gcp-6.12-fips-boot-installed 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-gcp-6.12-headers 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-gcp-6.12-modules 0 6.12.57-r2
Chainguard linux-qemu-6.12-boot-installed 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-qemu-6.12-fips-boot-installed 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-qemu-6.12-headers 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-qemu-6.12-modules 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-vmware-6.12-boot-installed 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-vmware-6.12-fips-boot-installed 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-vmware-6.12-headers 0 6.12.63-r0
Chainguard linux-vmware-6.12-modules 0 6.12.63-r0
Debian:11 linux 0 No fix
Debian:12 linux 0 No fix
Debian:13 linux 0 No fix
Debian:14 linux 0 6.16.3-1
Linux Kernel 0 6.15.4
Linux Kernel 2.6.25 6.12.64
Linux Kernel 2.6.25 6.6.124
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6-RT_Update_16 0 1-150600.1.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_16 0 1-150600.13.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7-RT_Update_5 0 1-150700.1.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-64kb 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-default-base 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1.150600.12.32.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-docs 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-obs-build 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-syms 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-source-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-syms-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-rt_debug 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-source-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-syms-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 kernel-rt 0 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 kernel-source-rt 0 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP7 kernel-syms-rt 0 6.4.0-150700.7.19.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 dtb-aarch64 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-64kb 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-debug 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-default-base 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1.150600.12.32.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-docs 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-kvmsmall 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-obs-build 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-obs-qa 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-rt_debug 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.52.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 dtb-aarch64 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-64kb 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-default 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-default-base 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1.160000.2.4
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-docs 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-kvmsmall 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-obs-build 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-obs-qa 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-rt 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-source 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-syms 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
openSUSE:Leap 16.0 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

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