Categories
CVE-2025-38681 medium CVSS 4.7

Vulnerability in Linux kernel (CVE-2025-38681)

Summary

Vulnerability in Linux kernel (CVE-2025-38681). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd()

Memory hot remove unmaps and tears down various kernel page table regions
as required. The ptdump code can race with concurrent modifications of
the kernel page tables. When leaf entries are modified concurrently, the
dump code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but
this is otherwise not harmful.

But when intermediate levels of kernel page table are freed, the dump code
will continue to use memory that has been freed and potentially
reallocated for another purpose. In such cases, the ptdump code may
dereference bogus addresses, leading to a number of potential problems.

To avoid the above mentioned race condition, platforms such as arm64,
riscv and s390 take memory hotplug lock, while dumping kernel page table
via the sysfs interface /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables.

Similar race condition exists while checking for pages that might have
been marked W+X via /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables/check_wx_pages
which in turn calls ptdump_check_wx(). Instead of solving this race
condition again, let's just move the memory hotplug lock inside generic
ptdump_check_wx() which will benefit both the scenarios.

Drop get_online_mems() and put_online_mems() combination from all existing
platform ptdump code paths.

Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD GitHub Advisory

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-2025-38681 has been found in Linux kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 4.7/10.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Linux kernel CVE-2025-38681" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-38681 (Linux kernel) — CWE-362 / CVSS v3 4.7
Attack vector: local / no user interaction
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 (CWE-362) exists in Linux kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Linux kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: Medium (CVSS 4.7/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.

🛡️ 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. Audit SBOM/dependencies to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

  1. 1
    Identify exposure identify
    Audit SBOM/dependencies for affected components.

    資産台帳・SBOM・依存マニフェストで Linux kernel を使っているサービスとバージョンを洗い出す。

  2. 2
    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":"5.7.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.241"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.190"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.149"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.103"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.43"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.15.11"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.16.2"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

References

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