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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-38271 json

net: prevent a NULL deref in rtnl_create_link()

published 2025-07-10 16 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-20977

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
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:

net: prevent a NULL deref in rtnl_create_link()

At the time rtnl_create_link() is running, dev->netdev_ops is NULL, we must not use netdev_lock_ops() or risk a NULL deref if CONFIG_NET_SHAPER is defined.

Use netif_set_group() instead of dev_set_group().

RIP: 0010:netdev_need_ops_lock include/net/netdev_lock.h:33 [inline] RIP: 0010:netdev_lock_ops include/net/netdev_lock.h:41 [inline] RIP: 0010:dev_set_group+0xc0/0x230 net/core/dev_api.c:82 Call Trace: <TASK> rtnl_create_link+0x748/0xd10 net/core/rtnetlink.c:3674 rtnl_newlink_create+0x25c/0xb00 net/core/rtnetlink.c:3813 __rtnl_newlink net/core/rtnetlink.c:3940 [inline] rtnl_newlink+0x16d6/0x1c70 net/core/rtnetlink.c:4055 rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x7cf/0xb70 net/core/rtnetlink.c:6944 netlink_rcv_skb+0x208/0x470 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2534 netlink_unicast_kernel net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1313 [inline] netlink_unicast+0x75b/0x8d0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1339 netlink_sendmsg+0x805/0xb30 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1883 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:712 [inline]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.15.3, 6.16

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-2025-38271 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: Linux kernel: Denial of Service via NULL dereference in rtnl_create_link()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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
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.