Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38493)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38493). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 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:

tracing/osnoise: Fix crash in timerlat_dump_stack()

We have observed kernel panics when using timerlat with stack saving,
with the following dmesg output:

memcpy: detected buffer overflow: 88 byte write of buffer size 0
WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 8153 at lib/string_helpers.c:1032 __fortify_report+0x55/0xa0
CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 8153 Comm: timerlatu/2 Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.15.3-200.fc42.x86_64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy)
Call Trace:

? trace_buffer_lock_reserve+0x2a/0x60
__fortify_panic+0xd/0xf
__timerlat_dump_stack.cold+0xd/0xd
timerlat_dump_stack.part.0+0x47/0x80
timerlat_fd_read+0x36d/0x390
vfs_read+0xe2/0x390
? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x1d5/0x210
ksys_read+0x73/0xe0
do_syscall_64+0x7b/0x160
? exc_page_fault+0x7e/0x1a0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

__timerlat_dump_stack() constructs the ftrace stack entry like this:

struct stack_entry *entry;
...
memcpy(&entry->caller, fstack->calls, size);
entry->size = fstack->nr_entries;

Since commit e7186af7fb26 ("tracing: Add back FORTIFY_SOURCE logic to
kernel_stack event structure"), struct stack_entry marks its caller
field with __counted_by(size). At the time of the memcpy, entry->size
contains garbage from the ringbuffer, which under some circumstances is
zero, triggering a kernel panic by buffer overflow.

Populate the size field before the memcpy so that the out-of-bounds
check knows the correct size. This is analogous to
__ftrace_trace_stack().

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-2025-38493 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38493" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38493 (Kernel)
Patched: 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.

📍 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 6.6.100, 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 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8
```
ステージング環境で 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":"6.6.0"},{"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-2025-38493 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.41-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38493 linux Fixed in: 6.12.41-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38493 linux-hwe-edge