Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-38100

MediumUpdated

Published: 03 July 2025

Published
03 July 2025
Modified
12 May 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0012 30.3th percentile
Risk Priority 11 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-38100 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 30.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/iopl: Cure TIF_IO_BITMAP inconsistencies io_bitmap_exit() is invoked from exit_thread() when a task exists or when a fork fails. In the latter case the exit_thread() cleans up resources which were allocated…

more

during fork(). io_bitmap_exit() invokes task_update_io_bitmap(), which in turn ends up in tss_update_io_bitmap(). tss_update_io_bitmap() operates on the current task. If current has TIF_IO_BITMAP set, but no bitmap installed, tss_update_io_bitmap() crashes with a NULL pointer dereference. There are two issues, which lead to that problem: 1) io_bitmap_exit() should not invoke task_update_io_bitmap() when the task, which is cleaned up, is not the current task. That's a clear indicator for a cleanup after a failed fork(). 2) A task should not have TIF_IO_BITMAP set and neither a bitmap installed nor IOPL emulation level 3 activated. This happens when a kernel thread is created in the context of a user space thread, which has TIF_IO_BITMAP set as the thread flags are copied and the IO bitmap pointer is cleared. Other than in the failed fork() case this has no impact because kernel threads including IO workers never return to user space and therefore never invoke tss_update_io_bitmap(). Cure this by adding the missing cleanups and checks: 1) Prevent io_bitmap_exit() to invoke task_update_io_bitmap() if the to be cleaned up task is not the current task. 2) Clear TIF_IO_BITMAP in copy_thread() unconditionally. For user space forks it is set later, when the IO bitmap is inherited in io_bitmap_share(). For paranoia sake, add a warning into tss_update_io_bitmap() to catch the case, when that code is invoked with inconsistent state.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
5.5 — 5.10.239 · 5.11 — 5.15.186 · 5.16 — 6.1.142
debian
debian linux
11.0

Mitigating Controls

No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.

References