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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-38689 json

x86/fpu: Fix NULL dereference in avx512_status()

published 2025-09-04 14 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2025-26780

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

x86/fpu: Fix NULL dereference in avx512_status()

Problem ------- With CONFIG_X86_DEBUG_FPU enabled, reading /proc/[kthread]/arch_status causes a warning and a NULL pointer dereference.

This is because the AVX-512 timestamp code uses x86_task_fpu() but doesn't check it for NULL. CONFIG_X86_DEBUG_FPU addles that function for kernel threads (PF_KTHREAD specifically), making it return NULL.

The point of the warning was to ensure that kernel threads only access task->fpu after going through kernel_fpu_begin()/_end(). Note: all kernel tasks exposed in /proc have a valid task->fpu.

Solution -------- One option is to silence the warning and check for NULL from x86_task_fpu(). However, that warning is fairly fresh and seems like a defense against misuse of the FPU state in kernel threads.

Instead, stop outputting AVX-512_elapsed_ms for kernel threads altogether. The data was garbage anyway because avx512_timestamp is only updated for user threads, not kernel threads.

If anyone ever wants to track kernel thread AVX-512 use, they can come back later and do it properly, separate from this bug fix.

[ dhansen: mostly rewrite changelog ]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.16.2, 6.17

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-2025-38689 updated

kernel: x86/fpu: Fix NULL dereference in avx512_status()

  • 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

0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% 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

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