Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38589)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38589). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.15.10, 6.16.1 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

neighbour: Fix null-ptr-deref in neigh_flush_dev().

kernel test robot reported null-ptr-deref in neigh_flush_dev(). [0]

The cited commit introduced per-netdev neighbour list and converted
neigh_flush_dev() to use it instead of the global hash table.

One thing we missed is that neigh_table_clear() calls neigh_ifdown()
with NULL dev.

Let's restore the hash table iteration.

Note that IPv6 module is no longer unloadable, so neigh_table_clear()
is called only when IPv6 fails to initialise, which is unlikely to
happen.

[0]:
IPv6: Attempt to unregister permanent protocol 136
IPv6: Attempt to unregister permanent protocol 17
Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc00000001a0: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000d00-0x0000000000000d07]
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: systemd Tainted: G T 6.12.0-rc6-01246-gf7f52738637f #1
Tainted: [T]=RANDSTRUCT
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.2-debian-1.16.2-1 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:neigh_flush_dev.llvm.6395807810224103582+0x52/0x570
Code: c1 e8 03 42 8a 04 38 84 c0 0f 85 15 05 00 00 31 c0 41 83 3e 0a 0f 94 c0 48 8d 1c c3 48 81 c3 f8 0c 00 00 48 89 d8 48 c1 e8 03 <42> 80 3c 38 00 74 08 48 89 df e8 f7 49 93 fe 4c 8b 3b 4d 85 ff 0f
RSP: 0000:ffff88810026f408 EFLAGS: 00010206
RAX: 00000000000001a0 RBX: 0000000000000d00 RCX: 0000000000000000
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000…

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-2025-38589 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.15.10, 6.16.1 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38589" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38589 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.15.10, 6.16.1 — 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 6.15.10, 6.16.1.

🛡️ 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 6.15.10, 6.16.1
```
ステージング環境で 6.15.10, 6.16.1 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":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.10"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.16.1"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-38589 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.18.35-r1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38589 linux-hwe-edge