Cloud Vulnerability DB
An open project to list all known cloud vulnerabilities and Cloud Service Provider security issues
Vulnerability DatabaseCVE-2025-23161
CVE-2025-23161:
Linux Kernel vulnerability analysis and mitigation
Overview
CVE-2025-23161 is a vulnerability discovered in the Linux kernel related to the PCI Virtual Machine Device (VMD) component. The vulnerability was first reported on May 1, 2025, and involves incorrect lock type usage in the VMD device configuration space access mechanism (Wiz, NVD).
Technical details
The vulnerability stems from the vmddev::cfglock being implemented as a spinlockt instead of a rawspinlockt type. This becomes problematic because on PREEMPTRT systems, spinlockt becomes a sleeping lock, which cannot be acquired with disabled interrupts. The PCI config space access via pciops::read and pci_ops::write requires low-level hardware access with disabled interrupts, making the current implementation incompatible. The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 Base Score of 5.5 (Moderate) with the vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H (Wiz, Red Hat).
Impact
The vulnerability can cause system instability when accessing PCI configuration space under specific conditions, particularly on systems running with PREEMPT_RT (real-time) kernel configurations. This manifests as a BUG condition when attempting to access the VMD configuration space with interrupts disabled (Wiz).
Mitigation and workarounds
The issue has been fixed by changing vmddev::cfglock to a rawspinlockt type. Fixed versions are available in Linux kernel 6.1.135-1 for Debian bookworm and 6.12.25-1 for Debian sid. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 has deferred the fix for both kernel and kernel-rt packages (Debian Tracker, Red Hat).
Additional resources
Source: This report was generated using AI
Free Vulnerability Assessment
Benchmark your Cloud Security Posture
Evaluate your cloud security practices across 9 security domains to benchmark your risk level and identify gaps in your defenses.
Get a personalized demo
Ready to see Wiz in action?
“Best User Experience I have ever seen, provides full visibility to cloud workloads.”
David EstlickCISO
“Wiz provides a single pane of glass to see what is going on in our cloud environments.”
Adam FletcherChief Security Officer
“We know that if Wiz identifies something as critical, it actually is.”
Greg PoniatowskiHead of Threat and Vulnerability Management