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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-38538 json

dmaengine: nbpfaxi: Fix memory corruption in probe()

published 2025-08-16 14 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2025-26109

cvss
7.8
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 8%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

dmaengine: nbpfaxi: Fix memory corruption in probe()

The nbpf->chan[] array is allocated earlier in the nbpf_probe() function and it has "num_channels" elements. These three loops iterate one element farther than they should and corrupt memory.

The changes to the second loop are more involved. In this case, we're copying data from the irqbuf[] array into the nbpf->chan[] array. If the data in irqbuf[i] is the error IRQ then we skip it, so the iterators are not in sync. I added a check to ensure that we don't go beyond the end of the irqbuf[] array. I'm pretty sure this can't happen, but it seemed harmless to add a check.

On the other hand, after the loop has ended there is a check to ensure that the "chan" iterator is where we expect it to be. In the original code we went one element beyond the end of the array so the iterator wasn't in the correct place and it would always return -EINVAL. However, now it will always be in the correct place. I deleted the check since we know the result.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.297, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8, 6.16
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.147-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.41-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.16.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38538

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-163.173
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1097.104
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1097.106
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1093.99
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38538

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-2026:20570-1SUSE-SU-2025:03634-1SUSE-SU-2025:03633-1

  • 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

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-2025-38538 updated

kernel: dmaengine: nbpfaxi: Fix memory corruption in probe()

  • 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

0.19% 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
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

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.