CVE-2025-68305 Bluetooth: hci_sock: Prevent race in socket write iter and sock bind
A race condition in the Linux kernel Bluetooth subsystem allows local attackers to trigger a use-after-free, potentially leading to privilege escalation or system crash.
- 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-2025-68305?
CVE-2025-68305 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:
Bluetooth: hci_sock: Prevent race in socket write iter and sock bind
There is a potential race condition between sock bind and socket write iter. bind may free the same cmd via mgmt_pending before write iter sends the cmd, just as syzbot reported in UAF[1].
Here we use hci_dev_lock to synchronize the two, thereby avoiding the UAF mentioned in [1].
[1] syzbot reported: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in mgmt_pending_remove+0x3b/0x210 net/bluetooth/mgmt_util.c:316 Read of size 8 at addr ffff888077164818 by task syz.0.17/5989 Call Trace: mgmt_pending_remove+0x3b/0x210 net/bluetooth/mgmt_util.c:316 set_link_security+0x5c2/0x710 net/bluetooth/mgmt.c:1918 hci_mgmt_cmd+0x9c9/0xef0 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c:1719 hci_sock_sendmsg+0x6ca/0xef0 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c:1839 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:727 [inline] __sock_sendmsg+0x21c/0x270 net/socket.c:742 sock_write_iter+0x279/0x360 net/socket.c:1195
Allocated by task 5989: mgmt_pending_add+0x35/0x140 net/bluetooth/mgmt_util.c:296 set_link_security+0x557/0x710 net/bluetooth/mgmt.c:1910 hci_mgmt_cmd+0x9c9/0xef0 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c:1719 hci_sock_sendmsg+0x6ca/0xef0 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c:1839 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:727 [inline] __sock_sendmsg+0x21c/0x270 net/socket.c:742 sock_write_iter+0x279/0x360 net/socket.c:1195
Freed by task 5991: mgmt_pending_free net/bluetooth/mgmt_util.c:311 [inline] mgmt_pending_foreach+0x30d/0x380 net/bluetooth/mgmt_util.c:257 mgmt_index_removed+0x112/0x2f0 net/bluetooth/mgmt.c:9477 hci_sock_bind+0xbe9/0x1000 net/bluetooth/hci_sock.c:1314
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68305?
How do I fix CVE-2025-68305?
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-2025-68305 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68305 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-68305, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68305, GHSA-83f9-77ww-3rpr, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-68305, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-68305, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68305.