Bug 2376091 (CVE-2025-38170) - CVE-2025-38170 kernel: arm64/fpsimd: Discard stale CPU state when handling SME traps
Summary: CVE-2025-38170 kernel: arm64/fpsimd: Discard stale CPU state when handling SM...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2025-38170
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-07-03 09:04 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2025-07-16 07:39 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-07-03 09:04:37 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

arm64/fpsimd: Discard stale CPU state when handling SME traps

The logic for handling SME traps manipulates saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state
incorrectly, and a race with preemption can result in a task having
TIF_SME set and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE clear even though the live CPU state
is stale (e.g. with SME traps enabled). This can result in warnings from
do_sme_acc() where SME traps are not expected while TIF_SME is set:

|        /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */
|        if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME))
|                WARN_ON(1);

This is very similar to the SVE issue we fixed in commit:

  751ecf6afd6568ad ("arm64/sve: Discard stale CPU state when handling SVE traps")

The race can occur when the SME trap handler is preempted before and
after manipulating the saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state, starting and ending on
the same CPU, e.g.

| void do_sme_acc(unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
| {
|         // Trap on CPU 0 with TIF_SME clear, SME traps enabled
|         // task->fpsimd_cpu is 0.
|         // per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is task.
|
|         ...
|
|         // Preempted; migrated from CPU 0 to CPU 1.
|         // TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set.
|
|         get_cpu_fpsimd_context();
|
|         /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */
|         if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME))
|                 WARN_ON(1);
|
|         if (!test_thread_flag(TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE)) {
|                 unsigned long vq_minus_one =
|                         sve_vq_from_vl(task_get_sme_vl(current)) - 1;
|                 sme_set_vq(vq_minus_one);
|
|                 fpsimd_bind_task_to_cpu();
|         }
|
|         put_cpu_fpsimd_context();
|
|         // Preempted; migrated from CPU 1 to CPU 0.
|         // task->fpsimd_cpu is still 0
|         // If per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is still task then:
|         // - Stale HW state is reused (with SME traps enabled)
|         // - TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is cleared
|         // - A return to userspace skips HW state restore
| }

Fix the case where the state is not live and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set
by calling fpsimd_flush_task_state() to detach from the saved CPU
state. This ensures that a subsequent context switch will not reuse the
stale CPU state, and will instead set TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE, forcing the
new state to be reloaded from memory prior to a return to userspace.

Note: this was originallly posted as [1].

[ Rutland: rewrite commit message ]

Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-07-03 14:38:07 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025070342-CVE-2025-38170-0f47@gregkh/T


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