# CVE-2025-71119: powerpc/kexec: Enable SMT before waking offline CPUs

> A kernel warning occurs during kexec on PowerPC when SMT is disabled, potentially causing instability or denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:** 14 Jan 2026
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-71119, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-71119, GHSA-c6m6-8r45-fwg7, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-71119, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-71119

## What is CVE-2025-71119?

CVE-2025-71119 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:

powerpc/kexec: Enable SMT before waking offline CPUs

If SMT is disabled or a partial SMT state is enabled, when a new kernel
image is loaded for kexec, on reboot the following warning is observed:

kexec: Waking offline cpu 228.
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 9062 at arch/powerpc/kexec/core_64.c:223 kexec_prepare_cpus+0x1b0/0x1bc
[snip]
 NIP kexec_prepare_cpus+0x1b0/0x1bc
 LR  kexec_prepare_cpus+0x1a0/0x1bc
 Call Trace:
  kexec_prepare_cpus+0x1a0/0x1bc (unreliable)
  default_machine_kexec+0x160/0x19c
  machine_kexec+0x80/0x88
  kernel_kexec+0xd0/0x118
  __do_sys_reboot+0x210/0x2c4
  system_call_exception+0x124/0x320
  system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec

This occurs as add_cpu() fails due to cpu_bootable() returning false for
CPUs that fail the cpu_smt_thread_allowed() check or non primary
threads if SMT is disabled.

Fix the issue by enabling SMT and resetting the number of SMT threads to
the number of threads per core, before attempting to wake up all present
CPUs.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-71119?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-71119?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-71119 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-71119 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-71119 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-71119 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-71119 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. 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-2025-71119/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-71119/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-71119
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-71119
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-71119

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-71119/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.