Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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-2025-38051 is a high-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 7th 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-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-18602
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: Fix use-after-free in cifs_fill_dirent There is a race condition in the readdir concurrency process, which may access the rsp buffer after it has been released, triggering the following…
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KASAN warning. ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in cifs_fill_dirent+0xb03/0xb60 [cifs] Read of size 4 at addr ffff8880099b819c by task a.out/342975 CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 342975 Comm: a.out Not tainted 6.15.0-rc6+ #240 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.1-2.fc37 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70 print_report+0xce/0x640 kasan_report+0xb8/0xf0 cifs_fill_dirent+0xb03/0xb60 [cifs] cifs_readdir+0x12cb/0x3190 [cifs] iterate_dir+0x1a1/0x520 __x64_sys_getdents+0x134/0x220 do_syscall_64+0x4b/0x110 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7f996f64b9f9 Code: ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 0d f7 c3 0c 00 f7 d8 64 89 8 RSP: 002b:00007f996f53de78 EFLAGS: 00000207 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000004e RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f996f53ecdc RCX: 00007f996f64b9f9 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007f996f53dea0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000207 R12: ffffffffffffff88 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00007ffc8cd9a500 R15: 00007f996f51e000 </TASK> Allocated by task 408: kasan_save_stack+0x20/0x40 kasan_save_track+0x14/0x30 __kasan_slab_alloc+0x6e/0x70 kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x117/0x3d0 mempool_alloc_noprof+0xf2/0x2c0 cifs_buf_get+0x36/0x80 [cifs] allocate_buffers+0x1d2/0x330 [cifs] cifs_demultiplex_thread+0x22b/0x2690 [cifs] kthread+0x394/0x720 ret_from_fork+0x34/0x70 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 Freed by task 342979: kasan_save_stack+0x20/0x40 kasan_save_track+0x14/0x30 kasan_save_free_info+0x3b/0x60 __kasan_slab_free+0x37/0x50 kmem_cache_free+0x2b8/0x500 cifs_buf_release+0x3c/0x70 [cifs] cifs_readdir+0x1c97/0x3190 [cifs] iterate_dir+0x1a1/0x520 __x64_sys_getdents64+0x134/0x220 do_syscall_64+0x4b/0x110 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff8880099b8000 which belongs to the cache cifs_request of size 16588 The buggy address is located 412 bytes inside of freed 16588-byte region [ffff8880099b8000, ffff8880099bc0cc) The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x99b8 head: order:3 mapcount:0 entire_mapcount:0 nr_pages_mapped:0 pincount:0 anon flags: 0x80000000000040(head|node=0|zone=1) page_type: f5(slab) raw: 0080000000000040 ffff888001e03400 0000000000000000 dead000000000001 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000010001 00000000f5000000 0000000000000000 head: 0080000000000040 ffff888001e03400 0000000000000000 dead000000000001 head: 0000000000000000 0000000000010001 00000000f5000000 0000000000000000 head: 0080000000000003 ffffea0000266e01 00000000ffffffff 00000000ffffffff head: ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000008 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected Memory state around the buggy address: ffff8880099b8080: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8880099b8100: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb >ffff8880099b8180: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ^ ffff8880099b8200: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8880099b8280: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ================================================================== POC is available in the link [1]. The problem triggering process is as follows: Process 1 Process 2 ----------------------------------- ---truncated---
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 3 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
V1.4.3
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation can discover use-after-free bugs through dynamic analysis or fuzzing.
Engineering principles can require memory-safe constructs or languages that structurally avoid introducing use-after-free.
Process isolation confines the blast radius of use-after-free memory corruption to a single execution domain.
Memory protection controls limit exploitation impact by blocking unauthorized code execution from dangling pointers.
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 directly incorporate memory-safety tooling and reviews that prevent most use-after-free defects.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover use-after-free issues via scanning or analysis but do not prevent their introduction.
Routine patching removes known use-after-free instances after they have been introduced in released software.
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 in development can detect use-after-free bugs before release.
Secure SDLC mandates memory-safety practices that reduce use-after-free defects.
Application security requirements can specify memory-management rules that mitigate use-after-free.
Secure architecture principles include memory-safety design choices that limit use-after-free exposure.
Secure coding standards directly prescribe avoidance of use-after-free patterns.
Change-management processes help ensure memory-safety fixes are deployed consistently.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
- V-248592 OL 8 must clear memory when it is freed to prevent use-after-free attacks. prevents CWE-416
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
- V-230279 RHEL 8 must clear memory when it is freed to prevent use-after-free attacks. prevents CWE-416
RHEL 9 (1 rule)
- V-257794 RHEL 9 must clear memory when it is freed to prevent use-after-free attacks. prevents CWE-416