CVE-2025-40201 Affecting kernel-docs-html package, versions <6.12.0-160000.8.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.03% (8th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES1600-KERNELDOCSHTML-14912225
  • published10 Jan 2026
  • disclosed19 Dec 2025

Introduced: 19 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-40201  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:16.0.0 kernel-docs-html to version 6.12.0-160000.8.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-docs-html package and not the kernel-docs-html package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:16.0.0 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

kernel/sys.c: fix the racy usage of task_lock(tsk->group_leader) in sys_prlimit64() paths

The usage of task_lock(tsk->group_leader) in sys_prlimit64()->do_prlimit() path is very broken.

sys_prlimit64() does get_task_struct(tsk) but this only protects task_struct itself. If tsk != current and tsk is not a leader, this process can exit/exec and task_lock(tsk->group_leader) may use the already freed task_struct.

Another problem is that sys_prlimit64() can race with mt-exec which changes ->group_leader. In this case do_prlimit() may take the wrong lock, or (worse) ->group_leader may change between task_lock() and task_unlock().

Change sys_prlimit64() to take tasklist_lock when necessary. This is not nice, but I don't see a better fix for -stable.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1