# CVE-2025-68181: drm/radeon: Remove calls to drm_put_dev()

> A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's radeon driver can cause a system crash during device probe failures or removal.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 16 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-68181, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68181, GHSA-5r23-9p29-3j75, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68181

## What is CVE-2025-68181?

CVE-2025-68181 is a high-severity 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:

drm/radeon: Remove calls to drm_put_dev()

Since the allocation of the drivers main structure was changed to
devm_drm_dev_alloc() drm_put_dev()'ing to trigger it to be free'd
should be done by devres.

However, drm_put_dev() is still in the probe error and device remove
paths. When the driver fails to probe warnings like the following are
shown because devres is trying to drm_put_dev() after the driver
already did it.

[    5.642230] radeon 0000:01:05.0: probe with driver radeon failed with error -22
[    5.649605] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[    5.649607] refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.
[    5.649620] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 357 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xbe/0x110

(cherry picked from commit 3eb8c0b4c091da0a623ade0d3ee7aa4a93df1ea4)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68181?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-68181?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-68181 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68181 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-68181 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-68181 is a high-severity 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68181 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. 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-2025-68181/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-68181/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-68181
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-68181
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-68181

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-68181/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.