# CVE-2025-37843: PCI: pciehp: Avoid unnecessary device replacement check

> A race condition in the Linux kernel PCI hotplug driver can cause a deadlock during device removal, leading to system denial of service.

- **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:** 9 May 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-37843, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-37843, GHSA-rjpx-6frc-3vgp, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-37843

## What is CVE-2025-37843?

CVE-2025-37843 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 9 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:

PCI: pciehp: Avoid unnecessary device replacement check

Hot-removal of nested PCI hotplug ports suffers from a long-standing race
condition which can lead to a deadlock:  A parent hotplug port acquires
pci_lock_rescan_remove(), then waits for pciehp to unbind from a child
hotplug port.  Meanwhile that child hotplug port tries to acquire
pci_lock_rescan_remove() as well in order to remove its own children.

The deadlock only occurs if the parent acquires pci_lock_rescan_remove()
first, not if the child happens to acquire it first.

Several workarounds to avoid the issue have been proposed and discarded
over the years, e.g.:

https://lore.kernel.org/r/4c882e25194ba8282b78fe963fec8faae7cf23eb.1529173804.git.lukas@wunner.de/

A proper fix is being worked on, but needs more time as it is nontrivial
and necessarily intrusive.

Recent commit 9d573d19547b ("PCI: pciehp: Detect device replacement during
system sleep") provokes more frequent occurrence of the deadlock when
removing more than one Thunderbolt device during system sleep.  The commit
sought to detect device replacement, but also triggered on device removal.
Differentiating reliably between replacement and removal is impossible
because pci_get_dsn() returns 0 both if the device was removed, as well as
if it was replaced with one lacking a Device Serial Number.

Avoid the more frequent occurrence of the deadlock by checking whether the
hotplug port itself was hot-removed.  If so, there's no sense in checking
whether its child device was replaced.

This works because the ->resume_noirq() callback is invoked in top-down
order for the entire hierarchy:  A parent hotplug port detecting device
replacement (or removal) marks all children as removed using
pci_dev_set_disconnected() and a child hotplug port can then reliably
detect being removed.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-37843?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-37843?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-37843 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-37843 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-2025-37843 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-37843 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 9 May 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-2025-37843 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-2025-37843/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37843/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-37843
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-37843
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-37843

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37843/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.