CVE-2025-40295 fscrypt: fix left shift underflow when inode->i_blkbits > PAGE_SHIFT

Not scored Published 8 Dec 2025 Updated 11 May 2026

A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash via UBSAN warning when using specific block sizes with fscrypt, requiring a patched kernel.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2025-40295?

CVE-2025-40295 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 8 Dec 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:

fscrypt: fix left shift underflow when inode->i_blkbits > PAGE_SHIFT

When simulating an nvme device on qemu with both logical_block_size and physical_block_size set to 8 KiB, an error trace appears during partition table reading at boot time. The issue is caused by inode->i_blkbits being larger than PAGE_SHIFT, which leads to a left shift of -1 and triggering a UBSAN warning.

[ 2.697306] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 2.697309] UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in fs/crypto/inline_crypt.c:336:37 [ 2.697311] shift exponent -1 is negative [ 2.697315] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 274 Comm: (udev-worker) Not tainted 6.18.0-rc2+ #34 PREEMPT(voluntary) [ 2.697317] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 2.697320] Call Trace: [ 2.697324] <TASK> [ 2.697325] dump_stack_lvl+0x76/0xa0 [ 2.697340] dump_stack+0x10/0x20 [ 2.697342] __ubsan_handle_shift_out_of_bounds+0x1e3/0x390 [ 2.697351] bh_get_inode_and_lblk_num.cold+0x12/0x94 [ 2.697359] fscrypt_set_bio_crypt_ctx_bh+0x44/0x90 [ 2.697365] submit_bh_wbc+0xb6/0x190 [ 2.697370] block_read_full_folio+0x194/0x270 [ 2.697371] ? __pfx_blkdev_get_block+0x10/0x10 [ 2.697375] ? __pfx_blkdev_read_folio+0x10/0x10 [ 2.697377] blkdev_read_folio+0x18/0x30 [ 2.697379] filemap_read_folio+0x40/0xe0 [ 2.697382] filemap_get_pages+0x5ef/0x7a0 [ 2.697385] ? mmap_region+0x63/0xd0 [ 2.697389] filemap_read+0x11d/0x520 [ 2.697392] blkdev_read_iter+0x7c/0x180 [ 2.697393] vfs_read+0x261/0x390 [ 2.697397] ksys_read+0x71/0xf0 [ 2.697398] __x64_sys_read+0x19/0x30 [ 2.697399] x64_sys_call+0x1e88/0x26a0 [ 2.697405] do_syscall_64+0x80/0x670 [ 2.697410] ? __x64_sys_newfstat+0x15/0x20 [ 2.697414] ? x64_sys_call+0x204a/0x26a0 [ 2.697415] ? do_syscall_64+0xb8/0x670 [ 2.697417] ? irqentry_exit_to_user_mode+0x2e/0x2a0 [ 2.697420] ? irqentry_exit+0x43/0x50 [ 2.697421] ? exc_page_fault+0x90/0x1b0 [ 2.697422] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [ 2.697425] RIP: 0033:0x75054cba4a06 [ 2.697426] Code: 5d e8 41 8b 93 08 03 00 00 59 5e 48 83 f8 fc 75 19 83 e2 39 83 fa 08 75 11 e8 26 ff ff ff 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 48 8b 45 10 0f 05 <48> 8b 5d f8 c9 c3 0f 1f 40 00 f3 0f 1e fa 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 08 [ 2.697427] RSP: 002b:00007fff973723a0 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000000 [ 2.697430] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00005ea9a2c02760 RCX: 000075054cba4a06 [ 2.697432] RDX: 0000000000002000 RSI: 000075054c190000 RDI: 000000000000001b [ 2.697433] RBP: 00007fff973723c0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 2.697434] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000000000000000 [ 2.697434] R13: 00005ea9a2c027c0 R14: 00005ea9a2be5608 R15: 00005ea9a2be55f0 [ 2.697436] </TASK> [ 2.697436] ---[ end trace ]---

This situation can happen for block devices because when CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE is enabled, the maximum logical_block_size is 64 KiB. set_init_blocksize() then sets the block device inode->i_blkbits to 13, which is within this limit.

File I/O does not trigger this problem because for filesystems that do not support the FS_LBS feature, sb_set_blocksize() prevents sb->s_blocksize_bits from being larger than PAGE_SHIFT. During inode allocation, alloc_inode()->inode_init_always() assigns inode->i_blkbits from sb->s_blocksize_bits. Currently, only xfs_fs_type has the FS_LBS flag, and since xfs I/O paths do not reach submit_bh_wbc(), it does not hit the left-shift underflow issue.

[EB: use folio_pos() and consolidate the two shifts by i_blkbits]

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-40295?

How do I fix CVE-2025-40295?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-40295 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-40295 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-40295, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40295, GHSA-h3fq-7jwc-95rx, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40295.