CVE-2025-21844

Summary

CVE-2025-21844 is a recently identified vulnerability in the Linux kernel's SMB (Server Message Block) client. This issue specifically affects the receive_encrypted_standard() function. The flaw resides in a lack of checks for null pointers in this function, which could result in a null pointer dereference. The vulnerability can be exploited if an attacker sends a specially crafted SMB packet to the vulnerable system. To mitigate this risk, the Linux community has released updates that include checks for the return values of cifs_buf_get() and cifs_small_buf_get() in the receive_encrypted_standard() function to prevent null pointer dereferences.

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