CVE-2025-68733 smack: fix bug: unprivileged task can create labels
An unprivileged local user can escalate privileges by creating arbitrary SMACK labels if relabel-self is enabled, bypassing security restrictions.
- 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-2025-68733?
CVE-2025-68733 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 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:
smack: fix bug: unprivileged task can create labels
If an unprivileged task is allowed to relabel itself (/smack/relabel-self is not empty), it can freely create new labels by writing their names into own /proc/PID/attr/smack/current
This occurs because do_setattr() imports the provided label in advance, before checking "relabel-self" list.
This change ensures that the "relabel-self" list is checked before importing the label.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68733?
How do I fix CVE-2025-68733?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-68733 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68733 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-73165, BELL-CVE-2025-68733, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68733, GHSA-5mmp-9c8m-j75x, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-68733, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-68733 and 4 more.