CVE-2025-21692 net: sched: fix ets qdisc OOB Indexing

High 7.8 Published 10 Feb 2025 Updated 15 Oct 2026

A local attacker can trigger an out-of-bounds index in the ETS qdisc scheduler to achieve privilege escalation.

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-2025-21692?

CVE-2025-21692 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 10 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

net: sched: fix ets qdisc OOB Indexing

Haowei Yan <[email protected]> found that ets_class_from_arg() can index an Out-Of-Bound class in ets_class_from_arg() when passed clid of 0. The overflow may cause local privilege escalation.

[ 18.852298] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 18.853271] UBSAN: array-index-out-of-bounds in net/sched/sch_ets.c:93:20 [ 18.853743] index 18446744073709551615 is out of range for type 'ets_class [16]' [ 18.854254] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1275 Comm: poc Not tainted 6.12.6-dirty #17 [ 18.854821] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 [ 18.856532] Call Trace: [ 18.857441] <TASK> [ 18.858227] dump_stack_lvl+0xc2/0xf0 [ 18.859607] dump_stack+0x10/0x20 [ 18.860908] __ubsan_handle_out_of_bounds+0xa7/0xf0 [ 18.864022] ets_class_change+0x3d6/0x3f0 [ 18.864322] tc_ctl_tclass+0x251/0x910 [ 18.864587] ? lock_acquire+0x5e/0x140 [ 18.865113] ? __mutex_lock+0x9c/0xe70 [ 18.866009] ? __mutex_lock+0xa34/0xe70 [ 18.866401] rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x170/0x6f0 [ 18.866806] ? __lock_acquire+0x578/0xc10 [ 18.867184] ? __pfx_rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x10/0x10 [ 18.867503] netlink_rcv_skb+0x59/0x110 [ 18.867776] rtnetlink_rcv+0x15/0x30 [ 18.868159] netlink_unicast+0x1c3/0x2b0 [ 18.868440] netlink_sendmsg+0x239/0x4b0 [ 18.868721] ____sys_sendmsg+0x3e2/0x410 [ 18.869012] ___sys_sendmsg+0x88/0xe0 [ 18.869276] ? rseq_ip_fixup+0x198/0x260 [ 18.869563] ? rseq_update_cpu_node_id+0x10a/0x190 [ 18.869900] ? trace_hardirqs_off+0x5a/0xd0 [ 18.870196] ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0xcc/0x220 [ 18.870547] ? do_syscall_64+0x93/0x150 [ 18.870821] ? __memcg_slab_free_hook+0x69/0x290 [ 18.871157] __sys_sendmsg+0x69/0xd0 [ 18.871416] __x64_sys_sendmsg+0x1d/0x30 [ 18.871699] x64_sys_call+0x9e2/0x2670 [ 18.871979] do_syscall_64+0x87/0x150 [ 18.873280] ? do_syscall_64+0x93/0x150 [ 18.874742] ? lock_release+0x7b/0x160 [ 18.876157] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x5ce/0x8f0 [ 18.877833] ? irqentry_exit_to_user_mode+0xc2/0x210 [ 18.879608] ? irqentry_exit+0x77/0xb0 [ 18.879808] ? clear_bhb_loop+0x15/0x70 [ 18.880023] ? clear_bhb_loop+0x15/0x70 [ 18.880223] ? clear_bhb_loop+0x15/0x70 [ 18.880426] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [ 18.880683] RIP: 0033:0x44a957 [ 18.880851] Code: ff ff e8 fc 00 00 00 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 66 90 f3 0f 1e fa 64 8b 04 25 18 00 00 00 85 c0 75 10 b8 2e 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 51 c3 48 83 ec 28 89 54 24 1c 48 8974 24 10 [ 18.881766] RSP: 002b:00007ffcdd00fad8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002e [ 18.882149] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007ffcdd010db8 RCX: 000000000044a957 [ 18.882507] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 00007ffcdd00fb70 RDI: 0000000000000003 [ 18.885037] RBP: 00007ffcdd010bc0 R08: 000000000703c770 R09: 000000000703c7c0 [ 18.887203] R10: 0000000000000080 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000001 [ 18.888026] R13: 00007ffcdd010da8 R14: 00000000004ca7d0 R15: 0000000000000001 [ 18.888395] </TASK> [ 18.888610] ---[ end trace ]---

Weakness: CWE-129

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21692?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-21692?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2025-21692 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21692 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code: 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as AZL-57012, AZL-57028, BELL-CVE-2025-21692, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21692, GHSA-2xh3-9jm8-r4r2, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21692.