CVE-2025-40164 usbnet: Fix using smp_processor_id() in preemptible code warnings

What is CVE-2025-40164?

CVE-2025-40164 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 12 Nov 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:

usbnet: Fix using smp_processor_id() in preemptible code warnings

Syzbot reported the following warning:

BUG: using smp_processor_id() in preemptible [00000000] code: dhcpcd/2879 caller is usbnet_skb_return+0x74/0x490 drivers/net/usb/usbnet.c:331 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 2879 Comm: dhcpcd Not tainted 6.15.0-rc4-syzkaller-00098-g615dca38c2ea #0 PREEMPT(voluntary) Call Trace: <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x16c/0x1f0 lib/dump_stack.c:120 check_preemption_disabled+0xd0/0xe0 lib/smp_processor_id.c:49 usbnet_skb_return+0x74/0x490 drivers/net/usb/usbnet.c:331 usbnet_resume_rx+0x4b/0x170 drivers/net/usb/usbnet.c:708 usbnet_change_mtu+0x1be/0x220 drivers/net/usb/usbnet.c:417 __dev_set_mtu net/core/dev.c:9443 [inline] netif_set_mtu_ext+0x369/0x5c0 net/core/dev.c:9496 netif_set_mtu+0xb0/0x160 net/core/dev.c:9520 dev_set_mtu+0xae/0x170 net/core/dev_api.c:247 dev_ifsioc+0xa31/0x18d0 net/core/dev_ioctl.c:572 dev_ioctl+0x223/0x10e0 net/core/dev_ioctl.c:821 sock_do_ioctl+0x19d/0x280 net/socket.c:1204 sock_ioctl+0x42f/0x6a0 net/socket.c:1311 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:906 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:892 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x190/0x200 fs/ioctl.c:892 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xcd/0x260 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

For historical and portability reasons, the netif_rx() is usually run in the softirq or interrupt context, this commit therefore add local_bh_disable/enable() protection in the usbnet_resume_rx().

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-40164?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-40164?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2025-40164 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-40164 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-70010, AZL-78392, BELL-CVE-2025-40164, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40164, GHSA-f2f6-pqf4-6hg9, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-40164 and 5 more.