Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38256)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38256). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.12.36, 6.15.5 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

io_uring/rsrc: fix folio unpinning

syzbot complains about an unmapping failure:

[ 108.070381][ T14] kernel BUG at mm/gup.c:71!
[ 108.070502][ T14] Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1] SMP
[ 108.123672][ T14] Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS edk2-20250221-8.fc42 02/21/2025
[ 108.127458][ T14] Workqueue: iou_exit io_ring_exit_work
[ 108.174205][ T14] Call trace:
[ 108.175649][ T14] sanity_check_pinned_pages+0x7cc/0x7d0 (P)
[ 108.178138][ T14] unpin_user_page+0x80/0x10c
[ 108.180189][ T14] io_release_ubuf+0x84/0xf8
[ 108.182196][ T14] io_free_rsrc_node+0x250/0x57c
[ 108.184345][ T14] io_rsrc_data_free+0x148/0x298
[ 108.186493][ T14] io_sqe_buffers_unregister+0x84/0xa0
[ 108.188991][ T14] io_ring_ctx_free+0x48/0x480
[ 108.191057][ T14] io_ring_exit_work+0x764/0x7d8
[ 108.193207][ T14] process_one_work+0x7e8/0x155c
[ 108.195431][ T14] worker_thread+0x958/0xed8
[ 108.197561][ T14] kthread+0x5fc/0x75c
[ 108.199362][ T14] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20

We can pin a tail page of a folio, but then io_uring will try to unpin
the head page of the folio. While it should be fine in terms of keeping
the page actually alive, mm folks say it's wrong and triggers a debug
warning. Use unpin_user_folio() instead of unpin_user_page*.

[axboe: adapt to current tree, massage commit message]

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-2025-38256 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.12.36, 6.15.5 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38256" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38256 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.12.36, 6.15.5 — 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 6.12.36, 6.15.5.

🛡️ 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 6.12.36, 6.15.5
```
ステージング環境で 6.12.36, 6.15.5 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":"6.12.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.36"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.5"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38256 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.41-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38256 linux Fixed in: 6.12.37-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38256 linux-hwe-edge