VulnerabilityPublished 1 Apr 2025Updated 21 Jul 2026

CVE-2025-21986: Linux kernel · net: switchdev: Convert blocking notification chain to a raw one

Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium · fixed in 6.8.0-1039.41~22.04.1 : update Linux kernel when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 4% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 6.8.0-1039.41~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1036.42~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1040.42~22.04.1 +34

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 1 Apr 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade to a fixed release listed under Affected software.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux@6.8.0-84.84?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-84.84	Fixed in 6.8.0-84.84
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-aws`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws@6.8.0-1039.41?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1039.41	Fixed in 6.8.0-1039.41
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-azure`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure@6.8.0-1038.44?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1038.44	Fixed in 6.8.0-1038.44
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-azure-6.11`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-6.11@6.11.0-1018.18~24.04.1?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.11.0-1018.18~24.04.1	Fixed in 6.11.0-1018.18~24.04.1
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-azure-nvidia`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-nvidia@6.8.0-1025.27?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1025.27	Fixed in 6.8.0-1025.27
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-gcp`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-gcp@6.8.0-1040.42?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1040.42	Fixed in 6.8.0-1040.42

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: switchdev: Convert blocking notification chain to a raw one A blocking notification chain uses a read-write semaphore to protect the integrity of the chain. The semaphore is acquired for writing when adding / removing notifiers to / from the chain and acquired for reading when traversing the chain and informing notifiers about an event. In case of the blocking switchdev notification chain, recursive notifications are possible which leads to the semaphore being acquired twice for reading and to lockdep warnings being generated [1]. Specifically, this can happen when the bridge driver processes a SWITCHDEV_BRPORT_UNOFFLOADED event which causes it to emit notifications about deferred events when calling switchdev_deferred_process(). Fix this by converting the notification chain to a raw notification chain in a similar fashion to the netdev notification chain. Protect the chain using the RTNL mutex by acquiring it when modifying the chain. Events are always informed under the RTNL mutex, but add an assertion in call_switchdev_blocking_notifiers() to make sure this is not violated in the future. Maintain the "blocking" prefix as events are always emitted from process context and listeners are allowed to block. [1]: WARNING: possible recursive locking detected 6.14.0-rc4-custom-g079270089484 #1 Not tainted -------------------------------------------- ip/52731 is trying to acquire lock: ffffffff850918d8 ((switchdev_blocking_notif_chain).rwsem){++++}-{4:4}, at: blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x58/0xa0 but task is already holding lock: ffffffff850918d8 ((switchdev_blocking_notif_chain).rwsem){++++}-{4:4}, at: blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x58/0xa0 other info that might help us debug this: Possible unsafe locking scenario: CPU0 ---- lock((switchdev_blocking_notif_chain).rwsem); lock((switchdev_blocking_notif_chain).rwsem); *** DEADLOCK *** May be due to missing lock nesting notation 3 locks held by ip/52731: #0: ffffffff84f795b0 (rtnl_mutex){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: rtnl_newlink+0x727/0x1dc0 #1: ffffffff8731f628 (&net->rtnl_mutex){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: rtnl_newlink+0x790/0x1dc0 #2: ffffffff850918d8 ((switchdev_blocking_notif_chain).rwsem){++++}-{4:4}, at: blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x58/0xa0 stack backtrace: ... ? __pfx_down_read+0x10/0x10 ? __pfx_mark_lock+0x10/0x10 ? __pfx_switchdev_port_attr_set_deferred+0x10/0x10 blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x58/0xa0 switchdev_port_attr_notify.constprop.0+0xb3/0x1b0 ? __pfx_switchdev_port_attr_notify.constprop.0+0x10/0x10 ? mark_held_locks+0x94/0xe0 ? switchdev_deferred_process+0x11a/0x340 switchdev_port_attr_set_deferred+0x27/0xd0 switchdev_deferred_process+0x164/0x340 br_switchdev_port_unoffload+0xc8/0x100 [bridge] br_switchdev_blocking_event+0x29f/0x580 [bridge] notifier_call_chain+0xa2/0x440 blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x6e/0xa0 switchdev_bridge_port_unoffload+0xde/0x1a0 ...

GCVE source: db.gcve.eu
OSV ID: UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21986
Osv Schema Version: 1.7.0
Ecosystems: Ubuntu:Pro:14.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS, Ubuntu:16.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS:16.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:18.04:LTS, Ubuntu:18.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS-updates:18.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS:18.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:20.04:LTS, Ubuntu:20.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS-updates:20.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS:20.04:LTS, Ubuntu:22.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Nvidia-BlueField:22.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS-preview:22.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS-updates:22.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:Realtime:22.04:LTS, Ubuntu:24.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Nvidia-BlueField:24.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:FIPS-updates:24.04:LTS, Ubuntu:Pro:Realtime:24.04:LTS
CVSS version: 3.1

References

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