Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40238)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2025-40238). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.12.56, 6.17.6 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

net/mlx5: Fix IPsec cleanup over MPV device

When we do mlx5e_detach_netdev() we eventually disable blocking events
notifier, among those events are IPsec MPV events from IB to core.

So before disabling those blocking events, make sure to also unregister
the devcom device and mark all this device operations as complete,
in order to prevent the other device from using invalid netdev
during future devcom events which could cause the trace below.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000010
PGD 146427067 P4D 146427067 PUD 146488067 PMD 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 7735 Comm: devlink Tainted: GW 6.12.0-rc6_for_upstream_min_debug_2024_11_08_00_46 #1
Tainted: [W]=WARN
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:mlx5_devcom_comp_set_ready+0x5/0x40 [mlx5_core]
Code: 00 01 48 83 05 23 32 1e 00 01 41 b8 ed ff ff ff e9 60 ff ff ff 48 83 05 00 32 1e 00 01 eb e3 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 <48> 8b 47 10 48 83 05 5f 32 1e 00 01 48 8b 50 40 48 85 d2 74 05 40
RSP: 0018:ffff88811a5c35f8 EFLAGS: 00010206
RAX: ffff888106e8ab80 RBX: ffff888107d7e200 RCX: ffff88810d6f0a00
RDX: ffff88810d6f0a00 RSI: 0000000000000001 RDI: 0000000000000000
RBP: ffff88811a17e620 R08: 0000000000000040 R09: 0000000000000000
R10: ffff88811a5c3618 R11: 0000000de85d51bd R12: ffff88811a17e600
R13: ffff88810d6f0a00 R14: 000000000000000…

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-2025-40238 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.12.56, 6.17.6 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2025-40238" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2025-40238 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.12.56, 6.17.6 — 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 6.12.56, 6.17.6.

🛡️ 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 6.12.56, 6.17.6
```
ステージング環境で 6.12.56, 6.17.6 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":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.56"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.13.0"},{"fixed":"6.17.6"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2025-40238 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.12.57-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40238 linux Fixed in: 6.12.57-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40238 linux-hwe-edge