CVE-2025-37908

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. This vulnerability allows system instability and a denial of service (DoS) via improper cleanup of slab object extensions when memory allocation profiling is disabled.

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's slab allocator. When memory allocation profiling is disabled at runtime or due to an error, shutdown_mem_profiling() is called, but previously allocated slab object extension buffers (slab->obj_exts) are not released, because unaccount_slab() only performs that cleanup while mem_alloc_profiling_enabled() is true. Pages can consequently remain charged to a memory cgroup after being freed, which triggers a kernel BUG report (Bad page state; page still charged to cgroup) and leads to system instability and a local denial of service. Triggering this condition requires local access with privileges on a system where memory allocation profiling has been enabled and subsequently disabled. Red Hat rates this flaw as Moderate impact, lower than the Important severity implied by the upstream NVD and CVE.org CVSS scores of 7.8, because the flaw requires local access and this uncommon configuration, and primarily affects availability. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, 8, and 9 and Red Hat In-Vehicle OS 1 are not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in those kernels. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 is affected, and a fix is being pursued through delegated handling for the rhel-10.1 stream; the remaining RHEL 10 streams (rhel-10.0.z, rhel-10.1.z, and rhel-10.2) were assessed as not affected because the vulnerable code is not in the execute path.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.