Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hrtimers: Force migrate away...
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
hrtimers: Force migrate away hrtimers queued after CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING
hrtimers are migrated away from the dying CPU to any online target at
the CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING stage in order not to delay bandwidth timers
handling tasks involved in the CPU hotplug forward progress.
However wakeups can still be performed by the outgoing CPU after
CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING. Those can result again in bandwidth timers being
armed. Depending on several considerations (crystal ball power management
based election, earliest timer already enqueued, timer migration enabled or
not), the target may eventually be the current CPU even if offline. If that
happens, the timer is eventually ignored.
The most notable example is RCU which had to deal with each and every of
those wake-ups by deferring them to an online CPU, along with related
workarounds:
_ e787644caf76 (rcu: Defer RCU kthreads wakeup when CPU is dying)
_ 9139f93209d1 (rcu/nocb: Fix RT throttling hrtimer armed from offline CPU)
_ f7345ccc62a4 (rcu/nocb: Fix rcuog wake-up from offline softirq)
The problem isn't confined to RCU though as the stop machine kthread
(which runs CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING) reports its completion at the end
of its work through cpu_stop_signal_done() and performs a wake up that
eventually arms the deadline server timer:
WARNING: CPU: 94 PID: 588 at kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1086 hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x289/0x2d0
CPU: 94 UID: 0 PID: 588 Comm: migration/94 Not tainted
Stopper: multi_cpu_stop+0x0/0x120 <- stop_machine_cpuslocked+0x66/0xc0
RIP: 0010:hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x289/0x2d0
Call Trace:
start_dl_timer
enqueue_dl_entity
dl_server_start
enqueue_task_fair
enqueue_task
ttwu_do_activate
try_to_wake_up
complete
cpu_stopper_thread
Instead of providing yet another bandaid to work around the situation, fix
it in the hrtimers infrastructure instead: always migrate away a timer to
an online target whenever it is enqueued from an offline CPU.
This will also allow to revert all the above RCU disgraceful hacks.
Impact
CVE-2025-21816 has a CVSS score of 5.5 (Medium). The vector is requires local access, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. No fixed version is listed yet, so configuration controls and monitoring matter more in the interim.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2025-21816? CVE-2025-21816 is a medium-severity security vulnerability. No fixed version is listed yet.
- How severe is CVE-2025-21816? CVE-2025-21816 has a CVSS score of 5.5 (Medium). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2025-21816? No fixed version is listed for CVE-2025-21816 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates and apply mitigations in the interim.
- Is CVE-2025-21816 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2025-21816 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2025-21816 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.