CVE-2025-21632

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

x86/fpu: Ensure shadow stack is active before "getting" registers

The x86 shadow stack support has its own set of registers. Those registers
are XSAVE-managed, but they are "supervisor state components" which means
that userspace can not touch them with XSAVE/XRSTOR.  It also means that
they are not accessible from the existing ptrace ABI for XSAVE state.
Thus, there is a new ptrace get/set interface for it.

The regset code that ptrace uses provides an ->active() handler in
addition to the get/set ones. For shadow stack this ->active() handler
verifies that shadow stack is enabled via the ARCH_SHSTK_SHSTK bit in the
thread struct. The ->active() handler is checked from some call sites of
the regset get/set handlers, but not the ptrace ones. This was not
understood when shadow stack support was put in place.

As a result, both the set/get handlers can be called with
XFEATURE_CET_USER in its init state, which would cause get_xsave_addr() to
return NULL and trigger a WARN_ON(). The ssp_set() handler luckily has an
ssp_active() check to avoid surprising the kernel with shadow stack
behavior when the kernel is not ready for it (ARCH_SHSTK_SHSTK==0). That
check just happened to avoid the warning.

But the ->get() side wasn't so lucky. It can be called with shadow stacks
disabled, triggering the warning in practice, as reported by Christina
Schimpe:

WARNING: CPU: 5 PID: 1773 at arch/x86/kernel/fpu/regset.c:198 ssp_get+0x89/0xa0
[...]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
? show_regs+0x6e/0x80
? ssp_get+0x89/0xa0
? __warn+0x91/0x150
? ssp_get+0x89/0xa0
? report_bug+0x19d/0x1b0
? handle_bug+0x46/0x80
? exc_invalid_op+0x1d/0x80
? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x1f/0x30
? __pfx_ssp_get+0x10/0x10
? ssp_get+0x89/0xa0
? ssp_get+0x52/0xa0
__regset_get+0xad/0xf0
copy_regset_to_user+0x52/0xc0
ptrace_regset+0x119/0x140
ptrace_request+0x13c/0x850
? wait_task_inactive+0x142/0x1d0
? do_syscall_64+0x6d/0x90
arch_ptrace+0x102/0x300
[...]

Ensure that shadow stacks are active in a thread before looking them up
in the XSAVE buffer. Since ARCH_SHSTK_SHSTK and user_ssp[SHSTK_EN] are
set at the same time, the active check ensures that there will be
something to find in the XSAVE buffer.

[ dhansen: changelog/subject tweaks ]
ProviderTypeBase ScoreAtk. VectorAtk. ComplexityPriv. RequiredVector
NISTNIST
5.5 MEDIUM
LOCAL
LOW
LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
LinuxCNA
---
---
Base Score
CVSS 3.x
EPSS Score
Percentile: 7%
VendorProductVersion
linuxlinux_kernel
6.6 ≤
𝑥
< 6.6.72
linuxlinux_kernel
6.7 ≤
𝑥
< 6.12.10
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc1
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc2
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc3
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc4
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc5
linuxlinux_kernel
6.13:rc6
𝑥
= Vulnerable software versions
Debian logo
Debian Releases
Debian Product
Codename
linux
bullseye
5.10.223-1
not-affected
bookworm
6.1.148-1
not-affected
bullseye (security)
5.10.244-1
fixed
bookworm (security)
6.1.158-1
fixed
trixie
6.12.57-1
fixed
trixie (security)
6.12.48-1
fixed
forky
6.17.9-1
fixed
sid
6.17.11-1
fixed