Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-38161 is a high-severity Wrap or Wraparound (CWE-191) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); 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-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-19783
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/mlx5: Fix error flow upon firmware failure for RQ destruction Upon RQ destruction if the firmware command fails which is the last resource to be destroyed some SW resources were…
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already cleaned regardless of the failure. Now properly rollback the object to its original state upon such failure. In order to avoid a use-after free in case someone tries to destroy the object again, which results in the following kernel trace: refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 37589 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148 Modules linked in: rdma_ucm(OE) rdma_cm(OE) iw_cm(OE) ib_ipoib(OE) ib_cm(OE) ib_umad(OE) mlx5_ib(OE) rfkill mlx5_core(OE) mlxdevm(OE) ib_uverbs(OE) ib_core(OE) psample mlxfw(OE) mlx_compat(OE) macsec tls pci_hyperv_intf sunrpc vfat fat virtio_net net_failover failover fuse loop nfnetlink vsock_loopback vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common vmw_vsock_vmci_transport vmw_vmci vsock xfs crct10dif_ce ghash_ce sha2_ce sha256_arm64 sha1_ce virtio_console virtio_gpu virtio_blk virtio_dma_buf virtio_mmio dm_mirror dm_region_hash dm_log dm_mod xpmem(OE) CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 37589 Comm: python3 Kdump: loaded Tainted: G OE ------- --- 6.12.0-54.el10.aarch64 #1 Tainted: [O]=OOT_MODULE, [E]=UNSIGNED_MODULE Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 pstate: 60400005 (nZCv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) pc : refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148 lr : refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148 sp : ffff80008b81b7e0 x29: ffff80008b81b7e0 x28: ffff000133d51600 x27: 0000000000000001 x26: 0000000000000000 x25: 00000000ffffffea x24: ffff00010ae80f00 x23: ffff00010ae80f80 x22: ffff0000c66e5d08 x21: 0000000000000000 x20: ffff0000c66e0000 x19: ffff00010ae80340 x18: 0000000000000006 x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000020 x15: ffff80008b81b37f x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 2e656572662d7265 x12: ffff80008283ef78 x11: ffff80008257efd0 x10: ffff80008283efd0 x9 : ffff80008021ed90 x8 : 0000000000000001 x7 : 00000000000bffe8 x6 : c0000000ffff7fff x5 : ffff0001fb8e3408 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : ffff800179993000 x2 : 0000000000000000 x1 : 0000000000000000 x0 : ffff000133d51600 Call trace: refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148 mlx5_core_put_rsc+0x88/0xa0 [mlx5_ib] mlx5_core_destroy_rq_tracked+0x64/0x98 [mlx5_ib] mlx5_ib_destroy_wq+0x34/0x80 [mlx5_ib] ib_destroy_wq_user+0x30/0xc0 [ib_core] uverbs_free_wq+0x28/0x58 [ib_uverbs] destroy_hw_idr_uobject+0x34/0x78 [ib_uverbs] uverbs_destroy_uobject+0x48/0x240 [ib_uverbs] __uverbs_cleanup_ufile+0xd4/0x1a8 [ib_uverbs] uverbs_destroy_ufile_hw+0x48/0x120 [ib_uverbs] ib_uverbs_close+0x2c/0x100 [ib_uverbs] __fput+0xd8/0x2f0 __fput_sync+0x50/0x70 __arm64_sys_close+0x40/0x90 invoke_syscall.constprop.0+0x74/0xd0 do_el0_svc+0x48/0xe8 el0_svc+0x44/0x1d0 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x120/0x130 el0t_64_sync+0x1a4/0x1a8
- 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 static/dynamic analysis directly find integer underflow defects before code is released.
Security engineering principles require use of safe arithmetic constructs or language features that structurally eliminate integer underflow during subtraction.
Input validation can reject or sanitize values that would cause a subtraction to underflow the representable range.
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 prevent integer underflow defects via input validation, bounds checking, and static analysis.
Vulnerability scanning and code analysis can surface underflow flaws after they are introduced.
Routine patching can remediate known underflow bugs once they are discovered in deployed 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 catches integer underflow defects before release.
Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and arithmetic checks that prevent integer underflow.
Application security requirements include bounds checking and safe arithmetic to avoid underflow conditions.
Secure architecture principles require defensive coding patterns that mitigate integer wraparound risks.
Secure coding standards directly prescribe safe integer handling and overflow/underflow prevention.