Bug 2424865 (CVE-2025-68375)

Summary: CVE-2025-68375 kernel: perf/x86: Fix NULL event access and potential PEBS record loss
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-12-24 11:02:00 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

perf/x86: Fix NULL event access and potential PEBS record loss

When intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() is called to drain PEBS records, the
perf_event_overflow() could be called to process the last PEBS record.

While perf_event_overflow() could trigger the interrupt throttle and
stop all events of the group, like what the below call-chain shows.

perf_event_overflow()
  -> __perf_event_overflow()
    ->__perf_event_account_interrupt()
      -> perf_event_throttle_group()
        -> perf_event_throttle()
          -> event->pmu->stop()
            -> x86_pmu_stop()

The side effect of stopping the events is that all corresponding event
pointers in cpuc->events[] array are cleared to NULL.

Assume there are two PEBS events (event a and event b) in a group. When
intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() calls perf_event_overflow() to process the
last PEBS record of PEBS event a, interrupt throttle is triggered and
all pointers of event a and event b are cleared to NULL. Then
intel_pmu_drain_pebs_icl() tries to process the last PEBS record of
event b and encounters NULL pointer access.

To avoid this issue, move cpuc->events[] clearing from x86_pmu_stop()
to x86_pmu_del(). It's safe since cpuc->active_mask or
cpuc->pebs_enabled is always checked before access the event pointer
from cpuc->events[].