# CVE-2025-21902: acpi: typec: ucsi: Introduce a ->poll_cci method

> A bug in the Linux kernel UCSI driver causes a kernel warning and potential instability during USB Type-C initialization, requiring a patch to fix.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:** 1 Apr 2025
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-21902, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21902, GHSA-w69j-ppp7-83pp, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21902

## What is CVE-2025-21902?

CVE-2025-21902 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Apr 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:

acpi: typec: ucsi: Introduce a ->poll_cci method

For the ACPI backend of UCSI the UCSI "registers" are just a memory copy
of the register values in an opregion. The ACPI implementation in the
BIOS ensures that the opregion contents are synced to the embedded
controller and it ensures that the registers (in particular CCI) are
synced back to the opregion on notifications. While there is an ACPI call
that syncs the actual registers to the opregion there is rarely a need to
do this and on some ACPI implementations it actually breaks in various
interesting ways.

The only reason to force a sync from the embedded controller is to poll
CCI while notifications are disabled. Only the ucsi core knows if this
is the case and guessing based on the current command is suboptimal, i.e.
leading to the following spurious assertion splat:

WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 76 at drivers/usb/typec/ucsi/ucsi.c:1388 ucsi_reset_ppm+0x1b4/0x1c0 [typec_ucsi]
CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 76 Comm: kworker/3:0 Not tainted 6.12.11-200.fc41.x86_64 #1
Hardware name: LENOVO 21D0/LNVNB161216, BIOS J6CN45WW 03/17/2023
Workqueue: events_long ucsi_init_work [typec_ucsi]
RIP: 0010:ucsi_reset_ppm+0x1b4/0x1c0 [typec_ucsi]
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 ucsi_init_work+0x3c/0xac0 [typec_ucsi]
 process_one_work+0x179/0x330
 worker_thread+0x252/0x390
 kthread+0xd2/0x100
 ret_from_fork+0x34/0x50
 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
 </TASK>

Thus introduce a ->poll_cci() method that works like ->read_cci() with an
additional forced sync and document that this should be used when polling
with notifications disabled. For all other backends that presumably don't
have this issue use the same implementation for both methods.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21902?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-21902?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-21902 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21902 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-2025-21902 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-21902 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Apr 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-2025-21902 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-2025-21902/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21902/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21902
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21902
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21902

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21902/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.