CVE-2025-40028 binder: fix double-free in dbitmap
A double-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel binder driver allows local attackers to cause denial of service or potentially escalate privileges.
- 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-2025-40028?
CVE-2025-40028 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 28 Oct 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:
binder: fix double-free in dbitmap
A process might fail to allocate a new bitmap when trying to expand its proc->dmap. In that case, dbitmap_grow() fails and frees the old bitmap via dbitmap_free(). However, the driver calls dbitmap_free() again when the same process terminates, leading to a double-free error:
================================================================== BUG: KASAN: double-free in binder_proc_dec_tmpref+0x2e0/0x55c Free of addr ffff00000b7c1420 by task kworker/9:1/209
CPU: 9 UID: 0 PID: 209 Comm: kworker/9:1 Not tainted 6.17.0-rc6-dirty #5 PREEMPT Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Workqueue: events binder_deferred_func Call trace: kfree+0x164/0x31c binder_proc_dec_tmpref+0x2e0/0x55c binder_deferred_func+0xc24/0x1120 process_one_work+0x520/0xba4 [...]
Allocated by task 448: __kmalloc_noprof+0x178/0x3c0 bitmap_zalloc+0x24/0x30 binder_open+0x14c/0xc10 [...]
Freed by task 449: kfree+0x184/0x31c binder_inc_ref_for_node+0xb44/0xe44 binder_transaction+0x29b4/0x7fbc binder_thread_write+0x1708/0x442c binder_ioctl+0x1b50/0x2900 [...] ==================================================================
Fix this issue by marking proc->map NULL in dbitmap_free().
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-40028?
How do I fix CVE-2025-40028?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2025-40028 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-40028 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-40028, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40028, GHSA-8vjm-fc8f-c7jh, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-40028, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40028.