Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38378)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38378). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.15.6 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

HID: appletb-kbd: fix slab use-after-free bug in appletb_kbd_probe

In probe appletb_kbd_probe() a "struct appletb_kbd *kbd" is allocated
via devm_kzalloc() to store touch bar keyboard related data.
Later on if backlight_device_get_by_name() finds a backlight device
with name "appletb_backlight" a timer (kbd->inactivity_timer) is setup
with appletb_inactivity_timer() and the timer is armed to run after
appletb_tb_dim_timeout (60) seconds.

A use-after-free is triggered when failure occurs after the timer is
armed. This ultimately means probe failure occurs and as a result the
"struct appletb_kbd *kbd" which is device managed memory is freed.
After 60 seconds the timer will have expired and __run_timers will
attempt to access the timer (kbd->inactivity_timer) however the kdb
structure has been freed causing a use-after free.

[ 71.636938] ==================================================================
[ 71.637915] BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __run_timers+0x7ad/0x890
[ 71.637915] Write of size 8 at addr ffff8881178c5958 by task swapper/1/0
[ 71.637915]
[ 71.637915] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc2-00318-g739a6c93cc75-dirty #12 PREEMPT(voluntary)
[ 71.637915] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.2-debian-1.16.2-1 04/01/2014
[ 71.637915] Call Trace:
[ 71.637915]
[ 71.637915] dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70
[ 71.637915] print_report…

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-2025-38378 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.15.6 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38378" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38378 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.15.6 — 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 6.15.6.

🛡️ 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 6.15.6
```
ステージング環境で 6.15.6 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":"6.15.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.6"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38378 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.18.35-r1