CVE-2025-21090 Denial of service in Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors
An authenticated local user can cause a denial of service on Intel Xeon processors due to missing resource references.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-21090?
CVE-2025-21090 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors, published on 12 Aug 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Missing reference to active allocated resource for some Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable denial of service via local access.
Weakness: CWE-771
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21090?
How do I fix CVE-2025-21090?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-21090 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21090 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2025-21090, BELL-CVE-2025-21090, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21090, GHSA-x546-m2vh-46gq, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21090.