Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38023)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38023). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

nfs: handle failure of nfs_get_lock_context in unlock path

When memory is insufficient, the allocation of nfs_lock_context in
nfs_get_lock_context() fails and returns -ENOMEM. If we mistakenly treat
an nfs4_unlockdata structure (whose l_ctx member has been set to -ENOMEM)
as valid and proceed to execute rpc_run_task(), this will trigger a NULL
pointer dereference in nfs4_locku_prepare. For example:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000000c
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP PTI
CPU: 15 UID: 0 PID: 12 Comm: kworker/u64:0 Not tainted 6.15.0-rc2-dirty #60
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-2.fc40
Workqueue: rpciod rpc_async_schedule
RIP: 0010:nfs4_locku_prepare+0x35/0xc2
Code: 89 f2 48 89 fd 48 c7 c7 68 69 ef b5 53 48 8b 8e 90 00 00 00 48 89 f3
RSP: 0018:ffffbbafc006bdb8 EFLAGS: 00010246
RAX: 000000000000004b RBX: ffff9b964fc1fa00 RCX: 0000000000000000
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: fffffffffffffff4 RDI: ffff9ba53fddbf40
RBP: ffff9ba539934000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffbbafc006bc38
R10: ffffffffb6b689c8 R11: 0000000000000003 R12: ffff9ba539934030
R13: 0000000000000001 R14: 0000000004248060 R15: ffffffffb56d1c30
FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9ba5881f0000(0000) knlGS:00000000
CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 000000000000000c CR3: 000000093f244000 CR4: 00000000000006f0
Call Trace:

__rpc_execute+0xbc/0x480
rpc_async_schedule+0x2…

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-38023 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38023" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38023 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8
```
ステージング環境で 5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.184, 6.1.140, 6.6.92, 6.12.30, 6.14.8 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"4.12.0"},{"fixed":"5.4.294"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.238"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.184"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.140"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.92"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.30"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.14.8"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38023 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.140-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38023 linux Fixed in: 5.10.244-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38023 linux