CVE-2025-68172 crypto: aspeed - fix double free caused by devm
A double free vulnerability in the Linux kernel Aspeed crypto driver allows local attackers to cause a denial of service via improper clock resource management.
- 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-2025-68172?
CVE-2025-68172 is an use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 16 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:
crypto: aspeed - fix double free caused by devm
The clock obtained via devm_clk_get_enabled() is automatically managed by devres and will be disabled and freed on driver detach. Manually calling clk_disable_unprepare() in error path and remove function causes double free.
Remove the manual clock cleanup in both aspeed_acry_probe()'s error path and aspeed_acry_remove().
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68172?
How do I fix CVE-2025-68172?
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-2025-68172 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68172 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-68172, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68172, GHSA-jxm3-5hr5-7rwr, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-68172, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-68172, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68172.