Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38537)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38537). 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:

net: phy: Don't register LEDs for genphy

If a PHY has no driver, the genphy driver is probed/removed directly in
phy_attach/detach. If the PHY's ofnode has an "leds" subnode, then the
LEDs will be (un)registered when probing/removing the genphy driver.
This could occur if the leds are for a non-generic driver that isn't
loaded for whatever reason. Synchronously removing the PHY device in
phy_detach leads to the following deadlock:

rtnl_lock()
ndo_close()
...
phy_detach()
phy_remove()
phy_leds_unregister()
led_classdev_unregister()
led_trigger_set()
netdev_trigger_deactivate()
unregister_netdevice_notifier()
rtnl_lock()

There is a corresponding deadlock on the open/register side of things
(and that one is reported by lockdep), but it requires a race while this
one is deterministic.

Generic PHYs do not support LEDs anyway, so don't bother registering
them.

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-2025-38537 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-2025-38537" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38537 (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":"6.4.0"},{"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-2025-38537 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.41-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38537 linux Fixed in: 6.12.41-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38537 linux-hwe-edge