1. Ubuntu Security Notices
  2. USN-7874-2

USN-7874-2: Linux kernel (FIPS) vulnerabilities

Publication date

19 November 2025

Overview

Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.

Releases

Packages

  • linux-aws-fips - Linux kernel for Amazon Web Services (AWS) systems with FIPS
  • linux-fips - Linux kernel with FIPS
  • linux-gcp-fips - Linux kernel for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems with FIPS

Details

Jean-Claude Graf, Sandro Rüegge, Ali Hajiabadi, and Kaveh Razavi discovered
that the Linux kernel contained insufficient branch predictor isolation
between a guest and a userspace hypervisor for certain processors. This
flaw is known as VMSCAPE. An attacker in a guest VM could possibly use this
to expose sensitive information from the host OS. (CVE-2025-40300)

Several security issues were discovered in the Linux kernel.
An attacker could possibly use these to compromise the system.
This update corrects flaws in the following subsystems:

  • HSI subsystem;
  • I3C subsystem;
  • SMB network file system;
  • Padata parallel execution mechanism;
  • Timer subsystem;
  • Networking core

Jean-Claude Graf, Sandro Rüegge, Ali Hajiabadi, and Kaveh Razavi discovered
that the Linux kernel contained insufficient branch predictor isolation
between a guest and a userspace hypervisor for certain processors. This
flaw is known as VMSCAPE. An attacker in a guest VM could possibly use this
to expose sensitive information from the host OS. (CVE-2025-40300)

Several security issues were discovered in the Linux kernel.
An attacker could possibly use these to compromise the system.
This update corrects flaws in the following subsystems:

  • HSI subsystem;
  • I3C subsystem;
  • SMB network file system;
  • Padata parallel execution mechanism;
  • Timer subsystem;
  • Networking core

Update instructions

After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to make all the necessary changes.

Learn more about how to get the fixes.

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change the kernel updates have been given a new version number, which requires you to recompile and reinstall all third party kernel modules you might have installed. Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-generic, linux-generic-lts-RELEASE, linux-virtual, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform this as well.

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu Release Package Version
20.04 LTS focal linux-image-5.4.0-1126-fips –  5.4.0-1126.136  
linux-image-5.4.0-1152-aws-fips –  5.4.0-1152.162+fips1  
linux-image-5.4.0-1155-gcp-fips –  5.4.0-1155.164+fips1  
linux-image-aws-fips –  5.4.0.1152.99  
linux-image-aws-fips-5.4 –  5.4.0.1152.99  
linux-image-fips –  5.4.0.1126.123  
linux-image-fips-5.4 –  5.4.0.1126.123  
linux-image-gcp-fips –  5.4.0.1155.97  
linux-image-gcp-fips-5.4 –  5.4.0.1155.97  

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References

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