Vulnerability · CVE-2025-68248
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon…
Published Dec 16, 2025 · catalog updated Oct 14, 2026 · the affected product
Check if you run it
No confirmed exploitation is on record for CVE-2025-68248. EPSS is 0.17%. Act only if a listed version of the affected product is installed.
Gaps on this record
- No plain product name is stored. The page cannot tell you which product to check.
- No version range is stored. A customer cannot check an installed version against this record.
- No vendor fix or required action is stored. Compare the linked advisory before you change production.
- Severity
- Unknown—
- Known exploitation
- Not in CISA/VulnCheck KEV
- EPSS
- 0.17%
- Remediation
- Not established
- Affected products
- See sources for product scope
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then inflate the new page. However, if inflating the new page succeeded, we effectively deflated the old page, reducing the balloon size. In that case, the migration actually worked: similar to migrating+ immediately deflating the new page. The old page will be freed back to the buddy. Right now, the core will leave the page be marked as isolated (as we returned an error). When later trying to putback that page, we will run into the WARN_ON_ONCE() in balloon_page_putback(). That handling was changed in commit 3544c4faccb8 ("mm/balloon_compaction: stop using __ClearPageMovable()"); before that change, we would have tolerated that way of handling it. To fix it, let's just return 0 in that case, making the core effectively just clear the "isolated" flag + freeing it back to the buddy as if the migration succeeded. Note that the new page will also get freed when the core puts the last reference. Note that this also makes it all be more consistent: we will no longer unisolate the page in the balloon driver while keeping it marked as being isolated in migration core. This was found by code inspection.
No affected version ranges are stored yet. Use the vendor advisory before you decide this record does not apply.
How to fix CVE-2025-68248
Recommended remediation
No required-action text, fix commit, or clear fixed-version range is stored yet.
Official advisories
What to do
Three questions, each answered from this record only. Confirm the vendor advisory before you patch.
Should you patch?
No confirmed exploitation is on record for CVE-2025-68248. EPSS is 0.17%. Act only if a listed version of the affected product is installed.
Which versions are affected?
Affected version ranges are not on this record. Compare the installed version with the linked vendor advisory before you change production.
What should an analyst verify?
No weakness class is stored. EPSS 0.17%. There is no CISA KEV listing. No Exploit-DB or Metasploit reference is linked. Use the source links for the original advisory.
Code
The project this record applies to. Exploit listings stay in References.
Timeline
Detection, updates, and resolution for this record.
Dec 16, 2025 · NIST NVD
Detected
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then inflate the new page. However, if inflating the new page succeeded, we effectively deflated the old page, reducing the balloon size. In that case, the migration actually worked: similar to
Oct 14, 2026 · NIST NVD
Updated
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then inflate the new page. However, if inflating the new page succeeded, we effectively deflated the old page, reducing the balloon size. In that case, the migration actually worked: similar to
Sources
- CVE.orgVulnerability recordCVE-2025-68248
Official CVE identifier
cve.org - FIRST EPSSExploitation probabilityCVE-2025-68248
30-day exploitation probability 0.2%
first.org - NIST NVDVulnerability recordCVE-2025-68248
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmw_balloon: indicate success when effectively deflating during migration When migrating a balloon page, we first deflate the old page to then inflate the new page. However, if inflating the new page succeeded
nvd.nist.gov
References
Freshness
Last verified in this catalog Oct 18, 2026. Significant claims (KEV, EPSS, CVSS, affected ranges) come from the source rows above — open the original publisher for the authoritative advisory.