CVE-2025-23149 tpm: do not start chip while suspended
A race condition in the Linux kernel TPM driver allows starting the chip while suspended, causing a kernel warning and potential system instability.
- 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-2025-23149?
CVE-2025-23149 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 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:
tpm: do not start chip while suspended
Checking TPM_CHIP_FLAG_SUSPENDED after the call to tpm_find_get_ops() can lead to a spurious tpm_chip_start() call:
[35985.503771] i2c i2c-1: Transfer while suspended [35985.503796] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 74 at drivers/i2c/i2c-core.h:56 __i2c_transfer+0xbe/0x810 [35985.503802] Modules linked in: [35985.503808] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 74 Comm: hwrng Tainted: G W 6.13.0-next-20250203-00005-gfa0cb5642941 #19 9c3d7f78192f2d38e32010ac9c90fdc71109ef6f [35985.503814] Tainted: [W]=WARN [35985.503817] Hardware name: Google Morphius/Morphius, BIOS Google_Morphius.13434.858.0 10/26/2023 [35985.503819] RIP: 0010:__i2c_transfer+0xbe/0x810 [35985.503825] Code: 30 01 00 00 4c 89 f7 e8 40 fe d8 ff 48 8b 93 80 01 00 00 48 85 d2 75 03 49 8b 16 48 c7 c7 0a fb 7c a7 48 89 c6 e8 32 ad b0 fe <0f> 0b b8 94 ff ff ff e9 33 04 00 00 be 02 00 00 00 83 fd 02 0f 5 [35985.503828] RSP: 0018:ffffa106c0333d30 EFLAGS: 00010246 [35985.503833] RAX: 074ba64aa20f7000 RBX: ffff8aa4c1167120 RCX: 0000000000000000 [35985.503836] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffffffffa77ab0e4 RDI: 0000000000000001 [35985.503838] RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000000 [35985.503841] R10: 0000000000000004 R11: 00000001000313d5 R12: ffff8aa4c10f1820 [35985.503843] R13: ffff8aa4c0e243c0 R14: ffff8aa4c1167250 R15: ffff8aa4c1167120 [35985.503846] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8aa4eae00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [35985.503849] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [35985.503852] CR2: 00007fab0aaf1000 CR3: 0000000105328000 CR4: 00000000003506f0 [35985.503855] Call Trace: [35985.503859] <TASK> [35985.503863] ? __warn+0xd4/0x260 [35985.503868] ? __i2c_transfer+0xbe/0x810 [35985.503874] ? report_bug+0xf3/0x210 [35985.503882] ? handle_bug+0x63/0xb0 [35985.503887] ? exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x50 [35985.503892] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20 [35985.503904] ? __i2c_transfer+0xbe/0x810 [35985.503913] tpm_cr50_i2c_transfer_message+0x24/0xf0 [35985.503920] tpm_cr50_i2c_read+0x8e/0x120 [35985.503928] tpm_cr50_request_locality+0x75/0x170 [35985.503935] tpm_chip_start+0x116/0x160 [35985.503942] tpm_try_get_ops+0x57/0x90 [35985.503948] tpm_find_get_ops+0x26/0xd0 [35985.503955] tpm_get_random+0x2d/0x80
Don't move forward with tpm_chip_start() inside tpm_try_get_ops(), unless TPM_CHIP_FLAG_SUSPENDED is not set. tpm_find_get_ops() will return NULL in such a failure case.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-23149?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-23149?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-23149 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-23149 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-23149, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23149, GHSA-9qj7-j3p9-hf88, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-23149, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-23149.