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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-38262 json

tty: serial: uartlite: register uart driver in init

published 2025-07-09 16 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2025-20799

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 8%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

tty: serial: uartlite: register uart driver in init

When two instances of uart devices are probing, a concurrency race can occur. If one thread calls uart_register_driver function, which first allocates and assigns memory to 'uart_state' member of uart_driver structure, the other instance can bypass uart driver registration and call ulite_assign. This calls uart_add_one_port, which expects the uart driver to be fully initialized. This leads to a kernel panic due to a null pointer dereference:

[ 8.143581] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000002b8 [ 8.156982] #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode [ 8.156984] #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page [ 8.156986] PGD 0 P4D 0 ... [ 8.180668] RIP: 0010:mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.188624] Call Trace: [ 8.188629] ? __die_body.cold+0x1a/0x1f [ 8.195260] ? page_fault_oops+0x15c/0x290 [ 8.209183] ? __irq_resolve_mapping+0x47/0x80 [ 8.209187] ? exc_page_fault+0x64/0x140 [ 8.209190] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 [ 8.209196] ? mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.223116] uart_add_one_port+0x60/0x440 [ 8.223122] ? proc_tty_register_driver+0x43/0x50 [ 8.223126] ? tty_register_driver+0x1ca/0x1e0 [ 8.246250] ulite_probe+0x357/0x4b0 [uartlite]

To prevent it, move uart driver registration in to init function. This will ensure that uart_driver is always registered when probe function is called.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.296, 5.15.187, 6.1.143, 6.6.96, 6.12.36, 6.15.5, 6.16
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.147-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.37-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38262

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-156.166
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1092.99
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1092.101
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1089.95
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38262

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 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1.160000.2.7
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20555-1SUSE-SU-2026:20599-1SUSE-SU-2026:20615-1SUSE-SU-2026:20570-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20287-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.96.1-1
  • kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.15.200.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-64853AZL-72799

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2025-38262 updated cvss 4.1

kernel: tty: serial: uartlite: register uart driver in init

  • 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
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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
    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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 8% 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 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
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.