CVE-2025-38594
kernel: iommu/vt-d: Fix UAF on sva unbind with pending IOPFs
Severity
UnknownRed Hat Product Security
CVSS
Review impact separately from score.
Published · August 19, 2025
Updated · October 30, 2026
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
iommu/vt-d: Fix UAF on sva unbind with pending IOPFs
Commit 17fce9d2336d ("iommu/vt-d: Put iopf enablement in domain attach path") disables IOPF on device by removing the device from its IOMMU's IOPF queue when the last IOPF-capable domain is detached from the device. Unfortunately, it did this in a wrong place where there are still pending IOPFs. As a result, a use-after-free error is potentially triggered and eventually a kernel panic with a kernel trace similar to the following:
refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 313 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xd8/0xe0 Workqueue: iopf_queue/dmar0-iopfq iommu_sva_handle_iopf Call Trace: <TASK> iopf_free_group+0xe/0x20 process_one_work+0x197/0x3d0 worker_thread+0x23a/0x350 ? rescuer_thread+0x4a0/0x4a0 kthread+0xf8/0x230 ? finish_task_switch.isra.0+0x81/0x260 ? kthreads_online_cpu+0x110/0x110 ? kthreads_online_cpu+0x110/0x110 ret_from_fork+0x13b/0x170 ? kthreads_online_cpu+0x110/0x110 ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
The intel_pasid_tear_down_entry() function is responsible for blocking hardware from generating new page faults and flushing all in-flight ones. Therefore, moving iopf_for_domain_remove() after this function should resolve this.
Statement
This vulnerability poses no security risk to supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases as the vulnerable code is not present in Red Hat kernels. The flaw stems from improper ordering during Shared Virtual Addressing domain detachment in the Intel IOMMU subsystem, which can cause a use-after-free condition if pending I/O page fault requests are active. Exploitation in vulnerable upstream environments requires local access and could trigger a kernel crash or system instability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CWE not specified