CVE-2025-21943

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

gpio: aggregator: protect driver attr handlers against module unload

Both new_device_store and delete_device_store touch module global resources (e.g. gpio_aggregator_lock). To prevent race conditions with module unload, a reference needs to be held.

Add try_module_get() in these handlers.

For new_device_store, this eliminates what appears to be the most dangerous scenario: if an id is allocated from gpio_aggregator_idr but platform_device_register has not yet been called or completed, a concurrent module unload could fail to unregister/delete the device, leaving behind a dangling platform device/GPIO forwarder. This can result in various issues. The following simple reproducer demonstrates these problems:

#!/bin/bash while :; do # note: whether gpiochip0 0 exists or not does not matter. echo gpiochip0 0 > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/gpio-aggregator/new_device done & while :; do modprobe gpio-aggregator modprobe -r gpio-aggregator done & wait

Starting with the following warning, several kinds of warnings will appear and the system may become unstable:

————[ cut here ]———— list_del corruption, ffff888103e2e980->next is LIST_POISON1 (dead000000000100) WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 1327 at lib/list_debug.c:56 __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 […] RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 […] Call Trace: ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 ? __warn.cold+0x93/0xf2 ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 ? report_bug+0xe6/0x170 ? __irq_work_queue_local+0x39/0xe0 ? handle_bug+0x58/0x90 ? exc_invalid_op+0x13/0x60 ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20 ? __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0xa3/0x120 gpiod_remove_lookup_table+0x22/0x60 new_device_store+0x315/0x350 [gpio_aggregator] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x137/0x1f0 vfs_write+0x262/0x430 ksys_write+0x60/0xd0 do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x180 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e […] —[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]—

Weakness

The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently.

Affected Software

Extended Description

This can have security implications when the expected synchronization is in security-critical code, such as recording whether a user is authenticated or modifying important state information that should not be influenced by an outsider. A race condition occurs within concurrent environments, and is effectively a property of a code sequence. Depending on the context, a code sequence may be in the form of a function call, a small number of instructions, a series of program invocations, etc. A race condition violates these properties, which are closely related:

A race condition exists when an “interfering code sequence” can still access the shared resource, violating exclusivity. Programmers may assume that certain code sequences execute too quickly to be affected by an interfering code sequence; when they are not, this violates atomicity. For example, the single “x++” statement may appear atomic at the code layer, but it is actually non-atomic at the instruction layer, since it involves a read (the original value of x), followed by a computation (x+1), followed by a write (save the result to x). The interfering code sequence could be “trusted” or “untrusted.” A trusted interfering code sequence occurs within the product; it cannot be modified by the attacker, and it can only be invoked indirectly. An untrusted interfering code sequence can be authored directly by the attacker, and typically it is external to the vulnerable product.

Potential Mitigations

• Minimize the usage of shared resources in order to remove as much complexity as possible from the control flow and to reduce the likelihood of unexpected conditions occurring.
• Additionally, this will minimize the amount of synchronization necessary and may even help to reduce the likelihood of a denial of service where an attacker may be able to repeatedly trigger a critical section (CWE-400).

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12f65d1203507f7db3ba59930fe29a3b8eee9945
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/56281a76b805b5ac61feb5d580139695a22f87f0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/807789018186cf508ceb3a1f8f02935cd195717b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8fb07fb1bba91d45846ed8605c3097fe67a7d54c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9334c88fc2fbc6836b307d269fcc1744c69701c0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d99dc8f7ea01ee1b21306e0eda8eb18a4af80db6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fd6aa1f8cbe0979eb66ac32ebc231bf0b10a2117