Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38538)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38538). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. 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:

dmaengine: nbpfaxi: Fix memory corruption in probe()

The nbpf->chan[] array is allocated earlier in the nbpf_probe() function
and it has "num_channels" elements. These three loops iterate one
element farther than they should and corrupt memory.

The changes to the second loop are more involved. In this case, we're
copying data from the irqbuf[] array into the nbpf->chan[] array. If
the data in irqbuf[i] is the error IRQ then we skip it, so the iterators
are not in sync. I added a check to ensure that we don't go beyond the
end of the irqbuf[] array. I'm pretty sure this can't happen, but it
seemed harmless to add a check.

On the other hand, after the loop has ended there is a check to ensure
that the "chan" iterator is where we expect it to be. In the original
code we went one element beyond the end of the array so the iterator
wasn't in the correct place and it would always return -EINVAL. However,
now it will always be in the correct place. I deleted the check since
we know the result.

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-2025-38538 has been found in Kernel.
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-2025-38538" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38538 (Kernel)
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.

📍 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 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":"3.17.0"},{"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-2025-38538 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.147-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38538 linux Fixed in: 5.10.244-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38538 linux-aws