# CVE-2025-21876: iommu/vt-d: Fix suspicious RCU usage

> A race condition in the Linux kernel IOMMU driver causes suspicious RCU usage warnings, potentially leading to system instability or denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 8.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Mar 2025
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-21876, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21876, GHSA-23g4-q58q-5pxc, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21876

## What is CVE-2025-21876?

CVE-2025-21876 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Mar 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:

iommu/vt-d: Fix suspicious RCU usage

Commit <d74169ceb0d2> ("iommu/vt-d: Allocate DMAR fault interrupts
locally") moved the call to enable_drhd_fault_handling() to a code
path that does not hold any lock while traversing the drhd list. Fix
it by ensuring the dmar_global_lock lock is held when traversing the
drhd list.

Without this fix, the following warning is triggered:
 =============================
 WARNING: suspicious RCU usage
 6.14.0-rc3 #55 Not tainted
 -----------------------------
 drivers/iommu/intel/dmar.c:2046 RCU-list traversed in non-reader section!!
               other info that might help us debug this:
               rcu_scheduler_active = 1, debug_locks = 1
 2 locks held by cpuhp/1/23:
 #0: ffffffff84a67c50 (cpu_hotplug_lock){++++}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0
 #1: ffffffff84a6a380 (cpuhp_state-up){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0
 stack backtrace:
 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 23 Comm: cpuhp/1 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc3 #55
 Call Trace:
  <TASK>
  dump_stack_lvl+0xb7/0xd0
  lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x159/0x1f0
  ? __pfx_enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x10/0x10
  enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x151/0x180
  cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x1df/0x990
  cpuhp_thread_fun+0x1ea/0x2c0
  smpboot_thread_fn+0x1f5/0x2e0
  ? __pfx_smpboot_thread_fn+0x10/0x10
  kthread+0x12a/0x2d0
  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
  ret_from_fork+0x4a/0x60
  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
  ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
  </TASK>

Holding the lock in enable_drhd_fault_handling() triggers a lockdep splat
about a possible deadlock between dmar_global_lock and cpu_hotplug_lock.
This is avoided by not holding dmar_global_lock when calling
iommu_device_register(), which initiates the device probe process.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21876?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-21876?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-21876 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21876 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-21876 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-21876 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Mar 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21876 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21876/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21876/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21876
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21876
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21876

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21876/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.