Bug 2420414 (CVE-2025-40327)

Summary: CVE-2025-40327 kernel: perf/core: Fix system hang caused by cpu-clock usage
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's perf subsystem. When using cpu-clock events, the __perf_event_overflow() callback is invoked from an hrtimer handler. This callback attempts to stop the event by calling cpu_clock_event_stop(), which in turn calls hrtimer_cancel() to cancel the hrtimer. This results in recursive entry into the hrtimer code from within an hrtimer handler, causing a deadlock and system hang. A local user with the ability to create perf events could exploit this to cause a denial of service.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-12-09 05:01:48 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

perf/core: Fix system hang caused by cpu-clock usage

cpu-clock usage by the async-profiler tool can trigger a system hang,
which got bisected back to the following commit by Octavia Togami:

  18dbcbfabfff ("perf: Fix the POLL_HUP delivery breakage") causes this issue

The root cause of the hang is that cpu-clock is a special type of SW
event which relies on hrtimers. The __perf_event_overflow() callback
is invoked from the hrtimer handler for cpu-clock events, and
__perf_event_overflow() tries to call cpu_clock_event_stop()
to stop the event, which calls htimer_cancel() to cancel the hrtimer.

But that's a recursion into the hrtimer code from a hrtimer handler,
which (unsurprisingly) deadlocks.

To fix this bug, use hrtimer_try_to_cancel() instead, and set
the PERF_HES_STOPPED flag, which causes perf_swevent_hrtimer()
to stop the event once it sees the PERF_HES_STOPPED flag.

[ mingo: Fixed the comments and improved the changelog. ]