Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38481)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38481). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via COMEDI_INSNLIST. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

comedi: Fail COMEDI_INSNLIST ioctl if n_insns is too large

The handling of the COMEDI_INSNLIST ioctl allocates a kernel buffer to
hold the array of struct comedi_insn, getting the length from the
n_insns member of the struct comedi_insnlist supplied by the user.
The allocation will fail with a WARNING and a stack dump if it is too
large.

Avoid that by failing with an -EINVAL error if the supplied n_insns
value is unreasonable.

Define the limit on the n_insns value in the MAX_INSNS macro. Set
this to the same value as MAX_SAMPLES (65536), which is the maximum
allowed sum of the values of the member n in the array of struct comedi_insn, and sensible comedi instructions will have an n of at
least 1.

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-2025-38481 has been found in Kernel.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like COMEDI_INSNLIST over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38481" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38481 (Kernel)
Attack surface: COMEDI_INSNLIST / n_insns / MAX_INSNS / MAX_SAMPLES
Patched: 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8 — 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. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via COMEDI_INSNLIST.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel. Attack surface: COMEDI_INSNLIST / n_insns / MAX_INSNS / MAX_SAMPLES.

🔥 Severity

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

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8.

🛡️ 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 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8
```
ステージング環境で 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8 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":"2.6.29"},{"fixed":"5.4.297"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.241"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.190"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.147"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.100"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.40"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.8"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38481 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.147-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38481 linux Fixed in: 5.10.244-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38481 linux