Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2025-38050 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-18603
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix kernel NULL pointer dereference when replacing free hugetlb folios A kernel crash was observed when replacing free hugetlb folios: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000028 PGD 0…
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P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 28 UID: 0 PID: 29639 Comm: test_cma.sh Tainted 6.15.0-rc6-zp #41 PREEMPT(voluntary) RIP: 0010:alloc_and_dissolve_hugetlb_folio+0x1d/0x1f0 RSP: 0018:ffffc9000b30fa90 EFLAGS: 00010286 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000342cca RCX: ffffea0043000000 RDX: ffffc9000b30fb08 RSI: ffffea0043000000 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffffc9000b30fb20 R08: 0000000000001000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffff88886f92eb00 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffea0043000000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00000000010c0200 R15: 0000000000000004 FS: 00007fcda5f14740(0000) GS:ffff8888ec1d8000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000028 CR3: 0000000391402000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> replace_free_hugepage_folios+0xb6/0x100 alloc_contig_range_noprof+0x18a/0x590 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? down_read+0x12/0xa0 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f cma_range_alloc.constprop.0+0x131/0x290 __cma_alloc+0xcf/0x2c0 cma_alloc_write+0x43/0xb0 simple_attr_write_xsigned.constprop.0.isra.0+0xb2/0x110 debugfs_attr_write+0x46/0x70 full_proxy_write+0x62/0xa0 vfs_write+0xf8/0x420 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? filp_flush+0x86/0xa0 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? filp_close+0x1f/0x30 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ? do_dup2+0xaf/0x160 ? srso_return_thunk+0x5/0x5f ksys_write+0x65/0xe0 do_syscall_64+0x64/0x170 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e There is a potential race between __update_and_free_hugetlb_folio() and replace_free_hugepage_folios(): CPU1 CPU2 __update_and_free_hugetlb_folio replace_free_hugepage_folios folio_test_hugetlb(folio) -- It's still hugetlb folio. __folio_clear_hugetlb(folio) hugetlb_free_folio(folio) h = folio_hstate(folio) -- Here, h is NULL pointer When the above race condition occurs, folio_hstate(folio) returns NULL, and subsequent access to this NULL pointer will cause the system to crash. To resolve this issue, execute folio_hstate(folio) under the protection of the hugetlb_lock lock, ensuring that folio_hstate(folio) does not return NULL.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.
Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.
Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.
Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.