Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38623)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-38623). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 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:

PCI: pnv_php: Fix surprise plug detection and recovery

The existing PowerNV hotplug code did not handle surprise plug events
correctly, leading to a complete failure of the hotplug system after device
removal and a required reboot to detect new devices.

This comes down to two issues:

When a device is surprise removed, often the bridge upstream
port will cause a PE freeze on the PHB. If this freeze is not
cleared, the MSI interrupts from the bridge hotplug notification
logic will not be received by the kernel, stalling all plug events
on all slots associated with the PE.
When a device is removed from a slot, regardless of surprise or
programmatic removal, the associated PHB/PE ls left frozen.
If this freeze is not cleared via a fundamental reset, skiboot
is unable to clear the freeze and cannot retrain / rescan the
slot. This also requires a reboot to clear the freeze and redetect
the device in the slot.

Issue the appropriate unfreeze and rescan commands on hotplug events,
and don't oops on hotplug if pci_bus_to_OF_node() returns NULL.

[bhelgaas: tidy comments]

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-2025-38623 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 6.15.10, 6.16.1 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-38623" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38623 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 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 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 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 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 6.15.10, 6.16.1
```
ステージング環境で 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.6.102, 6.12.42, 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":"4.9.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.241"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.190"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.148"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.102"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.42"}]},{"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-2025-38623 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.151-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38623 linux
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38623 linux