Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38229)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38229). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

media: cxusb: no longer judge rbuf when the write fails

syzbot reported a uninit-value in cxusb_i2c_xfer. [1]

Only when the write operation of usb_bulk_msg() in dvb_usb_generic_rw()
succeeds and rlen is greater than 0, the read operation of usb_bulk_msg()
will be executed to read rlen bytes of data from the dvb device into the
rbuf.

In this case, although rlen is 1, the write operation failed which resulted
in the dvb read operation not being executed, and ultimately variable i was
not initialized.

[1]
BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in cxusb_gpio_tuner drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/cxusb.c:124 [inline]
BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in cxusb_i2c_xfer+0x153a/0x1a60 drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/cxusb.c:196
cxusb_gpio_tuner drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/cxusb.c:124 [inline]
cxusb_i2c_xfer+0x153a/0x1a60 drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/cxusb.c:196
__i2c_transfer+0xe25/0x3150 drivers/i2c/i2c-core-base.c:-1
i2c_transfer+0x317/0x4a0 drivers/i2c/i2c-core-base.c:2315
i2c_transfer_buffer_flags+0x125/0x1e0 drivers/i2c/i2c-core-base.c:2343
i2c_master_send include/linux/i2c.h:109 [inline]
i2cdev_write+0x210/0x280 drivers/i2c/i2c-dev.c:183
do_loop_readv_writev fs/read_write.c:848 [inline]
vfs_writev+0x963/0x14e0 fs/read_write.c:1057
do_writev+0x247/0x5c0 fs/read_write.c:1101
__do_sys_writev fs/read_write.c:1169 [inline]
__se_sys_writev fs/read_write.c:1166 [inline]
__x64_sys_writev+0x98/0xe0 fs/read_write.c:1166
x64_sys_call+0x2229/0…

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-2025-38229 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38229" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38229 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4 — 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 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4.

🛡️ 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 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4
```
ステージング環境で 5.4.296, 5.10.239, 5.15.186, 6.1.142, 6.6.95, 6.12.35, 6.15.4 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":"2.6.13"},{"fixed":"5.4.296"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.239"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.186"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.142"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.95"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.35"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.4"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38229 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.143-r1
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38229 linux Fixed in: 5.10.244-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38229 linux