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

dm-verity: disable recursive forward error correction

There are two problems with the recursive correction:

1. It may cause denial-of-service. In fec_read_bufs, there is a loop that
has 253 iterations. For each iteration, we may call verity_hash_for_block
recursively. There is a limit of 4 nested recursions - that means that
there may be at most 253^4 (4 billion) iterations. Red Hat QE team
actually created an image that pushes dm-verity to this limit - and this
image just makes the udev-worker process get stuck in the 'D' state.

2. It doesn't work. In fec_read_bufs we store data into the variable
"fio->bufs", but fio bufs is shared between recursive invocations, if
"verity_hash_for_block" invoked correction recursively, it would
overwrite partially filled fio->bufs.

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History

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

threat_severity

Low


Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dm-verity: disable recursive forward error correction There are two problems with the recursive correction: 1. It may cause denial-of-service. In fec_read_bufs, there is a loop that has 253 iterations. For each iteration, we may call verity_hash_for_block recursively. There is a limit of 4 nested recursions - that means that there may be at most 253^4 (4 billion) iterations. Red Hat QE team actually created an image that pushes dm-verity to this limit - and this image just makes the udev-worker process get stuck in the 'D' state. 2. It doesn't work. In fec_read_bufs we store data into the variable "fio->bufs", but fio bufs is shared between recursive invocations, if "verity_hash_for_block" invoked correction recursively, it would overwrite partially filled fio->bufs.
Title dm-verity: disable recursive forward error correction
First Time appeared Linux
Linux linux Kernel
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Linux
Linux linux Kernel
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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published:

Updated: 2026-02-09T08:35:59.875Z

Reserved: 2026-01-13T15:30:19.665Z

Link: CVE-2025-71161

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2026-01-23T16:15:53.000

Modified: 2026-01-26T15:03:51.687

Link: CVE-2025-71161

cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Low

Publid Date: 2026-01-23T00:00:00Z

Links: CVE-2025-71161 - Bugzilla

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses

No weakness.