CVE-2025-71114 via_wdt: fix critical boot hang due to unnamed resource allocation
A flaw in the VIA watchdog driver causes a critical boot hang due to improper resource allocation, requiring a kernel patch to resolve.
- 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-2025-71114?
CVE-2025-71114 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 14 Jan 2026. 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:
via_wdt: fix critical boot hang due to unnamed resource allocation
The VIA watchdog driver uses allocate_resource() to reserve a MMIO region for the watchdog control register. However, the allocated resource was not given a name, which causes the kernel resource tree to contain an entry marked as "<BAD>" under /proc/iomem on x86 platforms.
During boot, this unnamed resource can lead to a critical hang because subsequent resource lookups and conflict checks fail to handle the invalid entry properly.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-71114?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-71114?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-71114 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-71114 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-71114, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-71114, GHSA-g38x-r7hr-wwff, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-71114, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-71114, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-71114.