CVE-2025-39850
Medium · 5.5CVSS
5.5
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Sep 19, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in the Linux kernel's VXLAN networking code can cause the entire system to crash when certain advanced routing options are used together.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
NULL pointer dereference in vxlan_xmit when proxy mode is enabled on a VXLAN device and an FDB entry for a neighbor MAC uses an FDB nexthop group instead of a direct remote destination, causing dereference of a non-existent remote pointer during ARP or IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation reduction.
Why it matters to the business
Kernel crash and denial of service on Linux systems configured with VXLAN proxy and nexthop objects; high prevalence in container and virtualized environments increases operational disruption risk.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local or network access configures nexthop groups and static FDB entries on a VXLAN device with proxy enabled, then triggers ARP or NDISC traffic that exercises the faulty path, resulting in NULL dereference and kernel panic. Threat actors such as VMSCAPE have targeted similar Linux kernel networking flaws for container privilege escalation.
How to fix it
Upgrade the Linux kernel to a version containing commit e211e3f4199ac829bd493632efcd131d337cba9d. Rebuild and reboot affected systems; verify proxy VXLAN configurations after update.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm kernel contains the fix commit, reproduce the provided nexthop/FDB configuration without triggering NULL dereference, and monitor for absence of vxlan_xmit oops in dmesg.
Typical attack path
- Add nexthop objects with FDB flag and create a nexthop group
- Create VXLAN interface with proxy option enabled
- Add neighbor entry and corresponding static FDB entry referencing the nexthop group
- Send ARP request or IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation to trigger vxlan_xmit path
- Kernel dereferences null remote destination and panics
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for NULL pointer dereference oops with RIP pointing to vxlan_xmit during arping or ndisc6 activity; correlate with VXLAN proxy interface creation and FDB nexthop configuration events.
- BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference.*vxlan_xmit
- RIP:.*vxlan_xmit+0x
- arping.*vx0
- ndisc6.*vx0
- bridge fdb add.*nhid
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel updates on all systems using VXLAN proxy
- Audit VXLAN configurations for nexthop group usage before and after patching
- Enable kernel panic logging and monitoring for rapid detection of crashes
- Restrict unprivileged access to network namespace and bridge configuration where possible
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vxlan: Fix NPD in {arp,neigh}_reduce() when using nexthop objects When the "proxy" option is enabled on a VXLAN device, the device will suppress ARP requests and IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation messages if it is able to reply on behalf of the remote host. That is, if a matching and valid neighbor entry is configured on the VXLAN device whose MAC address is not behind the "any" remote (0.0.0.0 / ::). The code currently assumes that the FDB entry for the neighbor's MAC address points to a valid remote destination, but this is incorrect if the entry is associated with an FDB nexthop group. This can result in a NPD [1][3] which can be reproduced using [2][4]. Fix by checking that the remote destination exists before dereferencing it. [1] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 [...] CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 365 Comm: arping Not tainted 6.17.0-rc2-virtme-g2a89cb21162c #2 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-4.fc41 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:vxlan_xmit+0xb58/0x15f0 [...] Call Trace: <TASK> dev_hard_start_xmit+0x5d/0x1c0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x246/0xfd0 packet_sendmsg+0x113a/0x1850 __sock_sendmsg+0x38/0x70 __sys_sendto+0x126/0x180 __x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30 do_syscall_64+0xa4/0x260 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 [2] #!/bin/bash ip address add 192.0.2.1/32 dev lo ip nexthop add id 1 via 192.0.2.2 fdb ip nexthop add id 10 group 1 fdb ip link add name vx0 up type vxlan id 10010 local 192.0.2.1 dstport 4789 proxy ip neigh add 192.0.2.3 lladdr 00:11:22:33:44:55 nud perm dev vx0 bridge fdb add 00:11:22:33:44:55 dev vx0 self static nhid 10 arping -b -c 1 -s 192.0.2.1 -I vx0 192.0.2.3 [3] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 [...] CPU: 13 UID: 0 PID: 372 Comm: ndisc6 Not tainted 6.17.0-rc2-virtmne-g6ee90cb26014 #3 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1v996), BIOS 1.17.0-4.fc41 04/01/2x014 RIP: 0010:vxlan_xmit+0x803/0x1600 [...] Call Trace: <TASK> dev_hard_start_xmit+0x5d/0x1c0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x246/0xfd0 ip6_finish_output2+0x210/0x6c0 ip6_finish_output+0x1af/0x2b0 ip6_mr_output+0x92/0x3e0 ip6_send_skb+0x30/0x90 rawv6_sendmsg+0xe6e/0x12e0 __sock_sendmsg+0x38/0x70 __sys_sendto+0x126/0x180 __x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30 do_syscall_64+0xa4/0x260 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 RIP: 0033:0x7f383422ec77 [4] #!/bin/bash ip address add 2001:db8:1::1/128 dev lo ip nexthop add id 1 via 2001:db8:1::1 fdb ip nexthop add id 10 group 1 fdb ip link add name vx0 up type vxlan id 10010 local 2001:db8:1::1 dstport 4789 proxy ip neigh add 2001:db8:1::3 lladdr 00:11:22:33:44:55 nud perm dev vx0 bridge fdb add 00:11:22:33:44:55 dev vx0 self static nhid 10 ndisc6 -r 1 -s 2001:db8:1::1 -w 1 2001:db8:1::3 vx0
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:11 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:12 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:13 | linux | 0 | 6.12.48-1 |
| Debian:14 | linux | 0 | 6.16.6-1 |
| Linux | Kernel | 5.8.0 | 6.12.46 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| 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-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7_Update_6 | 0 | 1-150700.15.3.1 |
| 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 Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1.150700.17.15.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| 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 Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| 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 Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.73.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1 |
| 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 |
| 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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