CentOS 9 : kernel-5.14.0-704.el9

high Nessus Plugin ID 314431

Synopsis

The remote CentOS host is missing one or more security updates for kernel.

Description

The remote CentOS Linux 9 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the kernel-5.14.0-704.el9 build changelog.

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu: disable SVA when CONFIG_X86 is set Patch series Fix stale IOTLB entries for kernel address space, v7. This proposes a fix for a security vulnerability related to IOMMU Shared Virtual Addressing (SVA). In an SVA context, an IOMMU can cache kernel page table entries. When a kernel page table page is freed and reallocated for another purpose, the IOMMU might still hold stale, incorrect entries. This can be exploited to cause a use-after- free or write-after-free condition, potentially leading to privilege escalation or data corruption. This solution introduces a deferred freeing mechanism for kernel page table pages, which provides a safe window to notify the IOMMU to invalidate its caches before the page is reused. This patch (of 8): In the IOMMU Shared Virtual Addressing (SVA) context, the IOMMU hardware shares and walks the CPU's page tables. The x86 architecture maps the kernel's virtual address space into the upper portion of every process's page table. Consequently, in an SVA context, the IOMMU hardware can walk and cache kernel page table entries.
The Linux kernel currently lacks a notification mechanism for kernel page table changes, specifically when page table pages are freed and reused. The IOMMU driver is only notified of changes to user virtual address mappings. This can cause the IOMMU's internal caches to retain stale entries for kernel VA. Use- After-Free (UAF) and Write-After-Free (WAF) conditions arise when kernel page table pages are freed and later reallocated. The IOMMU could misinterpret the new data as valid page table entries. The IOMMU might then walk into attacker-controlled memory, leading to arbitrary physical memory DMA access or privilege escalation. This is also a Write-After-Free issue, as the IOMMU will potentially continue to write Accessed and Dirty bits to the freed memory while attempting to walk the stale page tables. Currently, SVA contexts are unprivileged and cannot access kernel mappings. However, the IOMMU will still walk kernel- only page tables all the way down to the leaf entries, where it realizes the mapping is for the kernel and errors out. This means the IOMMU still caches these intermediate page table entries, making the described vulnerability a real concern. Disable SVA on x86 architecture until the IOMMU can receive notification to flush the paging cache before freeing the CPU kernel page table pages. (CVE-2025-71089)

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md: init bioset in mddev_init IO operations may be needed before md_run(), such as updating metadata after writing sysfs. Without bioset, this triggers a NULL pointer dereference as below: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address:
0000000000000020 Call Trace: md_update_sb+0x658/0xe00 new_level_store+0xc5/0x120 md_attr_store+0xc9/0x1e0 sysfs_kf_write+0x6f/0xa0 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x141/0x2a0 vfs_write+0x1fc/0x5a0 ksys_write+0x79/0x180
__x64_sys_write+0x1d/0x30 x64_sys_call+0x2818/0x2880 do_syscall_64+0xa9/0x580 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 Reproducer ``` mdadm -CR /dev/md0 -l1 -n2 /dev/sd[cd] echo inactive > /sys/block/md0/md/array_state echo 10 > /sys/block/md0/md/new_level ``` mddev_init() can only be called once per mddev, no need to test if bioset has been initialized anymore. (CVE-2025-68368)

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md: avoid repeated calls to del_gendisk There is a uaf problem which is found by case 23rdev-lifetime: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdead000000000122 RIP: 0010:bdi_unregister+0x4b/0x170 Call Trace:
<TASK> __del_gendisk+0x356/0x3e0 mddev_unlock+0x351/0x360 rdev_attr_store+0x217/0x280 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x14a/0x210 vfs_write+0x29e/0x550 ksys_write+0x74/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0xbb/0x380 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7ff5250a177e The sequence is: 1. rdev remove path gets reconfig_mutex 2. rdev remove path release reconfig_mutex in mddev_unlock 3. md stop calls do_md_stop and sets MD_DELETED 4. rdev remove path calls del_gendisk because MD_DELETED is set 5. md stop path release reconfig_mutex and calls del_gendisk again So there is a race condition we should resolve. This patch adds a flag MD_DO_DELETE to avoid the race condition. (CVE-2025-68373)

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md: fix rcu protection in md_wakeup_thread We attempted to use RCU to protect the pointer 'thread', but directly passed the value when calling md_wakeup_thread(). This means that the RCU pointer has been acquired before rcu_read_lock(), which renders rcu_read_lock() ineffective and could lead to a use-after-free. (CVE-2025-68374)

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md/raid5: fix possible null-pointer dereferences in raid5_store_group_thread_cnt() The variable mddev->private is first assigned to conf and then checked: conf = mddev->private; if (!conf) ... If conf is NULL, then mddev->private is also NULL. In this case, null-pointer dereferences can occur when calling raid5_quiesce(): raid5_quiesce(mddev, true);
raid5_quiesce(mddev, false); since mddev->private is assigned to conf again in raid5_quiesce(), and conf is dereferenced in several places, for example: conf->quiesce = 0; wake_up(&conf->wait_for_quiescent); To fix this issue, the function should unlock mddev and return before invoking raid5_quiesce() when conf is NULL, following the existing pattern in raid5_change_consistency_policy(). (CVE-2025-71135)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the CentOS 9 Stream kernel package.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 314431

File Name: centos9_kernel-5_14_0-704_110696.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: CentOS Local Security Checks

Published: 5/13/2026

Updated: 5/13/2026

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2025-71089

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:libperf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-uki-virt-addons, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:python3-perf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-headers, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-tools-libs-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-cross-headers, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-tools, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-uki-virt, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-abi-stablelists, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-tools-libs, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:libperf-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:rtla, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-devel-matched, cpe:/a:centos:centos:9, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-selftests-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:rv, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:perf, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-zfcpdump-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-modules-internal, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-64k-debug-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-modules-partner, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-modules-extra, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-devel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-debug-modules, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-debug-modules-core, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-rt-64k-debug-devel-matched, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-uki-virt-addons, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kernel-uki-virt

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, Host/CentOS/release, Host/CentOS/rpm-list

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/12/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/24/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2025-68368, CVE-2025-68373, CVE-2025-68374, CVE-2025-71089, CVE-2025-71135, CVE-2025-71225, CVE-2026-43051

Detections

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