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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-38233 json

powerpc64/ftrace: fix clobbered r15 during livepatching

published 2025-07-04 16 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2025-20023

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

powerpc64/ftrace: fix clobbered r15 during livepatching

While r15 is clobbered always with PPC_FTRACE_OUT_OF_LINE, it is not restored in livepatch sequence leading to not so obvious fails like below:

BUG: Unable to handle kernel data access on write at 0xc0000000000f9078 Faulting instruction address: 0xc0000000018ff958 Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] ... NIP: c0000000018ff958 LR: c0000000018ff930 CTR: c0000000009c0790 REGS: c00000005f2e7790 TRAP: 0300 Tainted: G K (6.14.0+) MSR: 8000000000009033 <SF,EE,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 2822880b XER: 20040000 CFAR: c0000000008addc0 DAR: c0000000000f9078 DSISR: 0a000000 IRQMASK: 1 GPR00: c0000000018f2584 c00000005f2e7a30 c00000000280a900 c000000017ffa488 GPR04: 0000000000000008 0000000000000000 c0000000018f24fc 000000000000000d GPR08: fffffffffffe0000 000000000000000d 0000000000000000 0000000000008000 GPR12: c0000000009c0790 c000000017ffa480 c00000005f2e7c78 c0000000000f9070 GPR16: c00000005f2e7c90 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR20: 0000000000000000 c00000005f3efa80 c00000005f2e7c60 c00000005f2e7c88 GPR24: c00000005f2e7c60 0000000000000001 c0000000000f9078 0000000000000000 GPR28: 00007fff97960000 c000000017ffa480 0000000000000000 c0000000000f9078 ... Call Trace: check_heap_object+0x34/0x390 (unreliable) __mutex_unlock_slowpath.isra.0+0xe4/0x230 seq_read_iter+0x430/0xa90 proc_reg_read_iter+0xa4/0x200 vfs_read+0x41c/0x510 ksys_read+0xa4/0x190 system_call_exception+0x1d0/0x440 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec

Fix it by restoring r15 always.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.15.4, 6.16
  • linux-aws-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1015.15~24.04.1
  • linux-gcp-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1018.19~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1014.14
  • linux-azure-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1014.14~24.04.1
  • linux-riscv-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-34.34.1~24.04.1
  • linux-oracle-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1015.15~24.04.1
  • linux-azure-nvidia-6.14 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1007.7
  • linux-realtime-6.14 Ubuntu Pro Realtime 24.04 LTS 6.14.0-1014.14~24.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38233

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1.160000.2.4
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:21074-1SUSE-SU-2025:21139-1SUSE-SU-2026:20560-1SUSE-SU-2025:21179-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:20081-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2025-38233 updated

kernel: powerpc64/ftrace: fix clobbered r15 during livepatching

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.