CVE-2025-71114

Description

A boot hang vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's VIA watchdog timer driver. When allocating a MMIO resource for the watchdog control register, the driver fails to assign a name to the resource. This creates an invalid "" entry in the kernel resource tree under /proc/iomem, which can cause subsequent resource lookups and conflict checks to fail, leading to a system hang during boot.

Statement

This vulnerability affects systems with VIA chipsets that use the via_wdt watchdog driver. The boot hang occurs during early system initialization when the unnamed resource causes resource management failures. Systems without VIA hardware or with the via_wdt module not loaded are not affected.

Mitigation

To mitigate this issue, prevent the via_wdt module from being loaded if VIA watchdog timer functionality is not required. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions on how to blacklist a kernel module.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score5.55.5N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowLowN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Memory; Read Application Data

When reusing a resource such as memory or a program variable, the original contents of that resource may not be cleared before it is sent to an untrusted party.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

The uninitialized resource may contain values that cause program flow to change in ways that the programmer did not intend.

Frequently Asked Questions

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