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NVD / CVE Program· CNA Linux

CVE-2025-68248: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 0/100)

  • The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
  • Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.17% (FIRST EPSS).
  • Fixed version: Linux Linux 4ba5a8a7faa647ada8eae61a36517cf369f5bbe4, aa05a044c5c2e147d726ac2fae1a97e0775eac11.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to Linux Linux 4ba5a8a7faa647ada8eae61a36517cf369f5bbe4, aa05a044c5c2e147d726ac2fae1a97e0775eac11 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then inflate the new page. However, if inflating the new page succeeded, we effectively deflated the old page, reducing the balloon size. In that case, the migration actually worked: similar to migrating+ immediately deflating the new page. The old page will be freed back to the buddy. Right now, the core will leave the page be marked as isolated (as we returned an error). When later trying to putback that page, we will run into the WARN_ON_ONCE() in balloon_page_putback(). That handling was changed in commit 3544c4faccb8 ("mm/balloon_compaction: stop using __ClearPageMovable()"); before that change, we would have tolerated that way of handling it. To fix it, let's just return 0 in that case, making the core effectively just clear the "isolated" flag + freeing it back to the buddy as if the migration succeeded. Note that the new page will also get freed when the core puts the last reference. Note that this also makes it all be more consistent: we will no longer unisolate the page in the balloon driver while keeping it marked as being isolated in migration core. This was found by code inspection.

—No exploit Fix available
Published
Dec 16, 2025
Updated
Oct 14, 2026
EPSS
0.1% · 6th percentile
CWE
—

Report tools

JSON

Action score

0

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS
0 / 40 · —
CISA KEV
0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS
0 / 30 · 0.1%

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

—

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (Linux). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

  • Linux Linux

    • 6.17affected
    • 3544c4faccb8f0867bc65f8007ee70bfb5054305 and later · before aa05a044c5c2e147d726ac2fae1a97e0775eac11affected · git
    • 3544c4faccb8f0867bc65f8007ee70bfb5054305 and later · before 4ba5a8a7faa647ada8eae61a36517cf369f5bbe4affected · git
    • before 6.17not affected · semver
    • 6.17.6 and later · up to and including 6.17.*not affected · semver
    • 6.18 and laternot affected · original_commit_for_fix

Same product

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Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

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  • CVE-2026-74475vxlan: use neigh_ha_snapshot() in route_shortcircuit()
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Published before and after this one in the same product

  • ← EarlierCVE-2025-68246Dec 16, 2025 · ksmbd: close accepted socket when per-IP limit rejects connection
    30Monitor
  • ← EarlierCVE-2025-68247Dec 16, 2025 · posix-timers: Plug potential memory leak in do_timer_create()
    0Monitor
  • Later →CVE-2025-68249Dec 16, 2025 · most: usb: hdm_probe: Fix calling put_device() before device initialization
    0Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / packageFixed versionSource
Linux Linux4ba5a8a7faa647ada8eae61a36517cf369f5bbe4Vendor (CNA)
Linux Linuxaa05a044c5c2e147d726ac2fae1a97e0775eac11Vendor (CNA)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

No history yet (it accumulates with the daily EPSS job).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

No CVSS vector for this record, so attack conditions can't be derived.

Weakness class (CWE)

—

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

MITRE has no CAPEC/ATT&CK mapping for this CWE.

Change log

  1. Fix✗ → ✓

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References

Show all references (1 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

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