Security Resilience

CVE-2025-38260

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 5.17 – 6.1.143

Published
09 July 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0017 6th percentile
Risk Priority 41 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2025-38260 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 6th 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

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: handle csum tree error with rescue=ibadroots correctly [BUG] There is syzbot based reproducer that can crash the kernel, with the following call trace: (With some debug output added) DEBUG:…

more

rescue=ibadroots parsed BTRFS: device fsid 14d642db-7b15-43e4-81e6-4b8fac6a25f8 devid 1 transid 8 /dev/loop0 (7:0) scanned by repro (1010) BTRFS info (device loop0): first mount of filesystem 14d642db-7b15-43e4-81e6-4b8fac6a25f8 BTRFS info (device loop0): using blake2b (blake2b-256-generic) checksum algorithm BTRFS info (device loop0): using free-space-tree BTRFS warning (device loop0): checksum verify failed on logical 5312512 mirror 1 wanted 0xb043382657aede36608fd3386d6b001692ff406164733d94e2d9a180412c6003 found 0x810ceb2bacb7f0f9eb2bf3b2b15c02af867cb35ad450898169f3b1f0bd818651 level 0 DEBUG: read tree root path failed for tree csum, ret=-5 BTRFS warning (device loop0): checksum verify failed on logical 5328896 mirror 1 wanted 0x51be4e8b303da58e6340226815b70e3a93592dac3f30dd510c7517454de8567a found 0x51be4e8b303da58e634022a315b70e3a93592dac3f30dd510c7517454de8567a level 0 BTRFS warning (device loop0): checksum verify failed on logical 5292032 mirror 1 wanted 0x1924ccd683be9efc2fa98582ef58760e3848e9043db8649ee382681e220cdee4 found 0x0cb6184f6e8799d9f8cb335dccd1d1832da1071d12290dab3b85b587ecacca6e level 0 process 'repro' launched './file2' with NULL argv: empty string added DEBUG: no csum root, idatacsums=0 ibadroots=134217728 Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000041: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000208-0x000000000000020f] CPU: 5 UID: 0 PID: 1010 Comm: repro Tainted: G OE 6.15.0-custom+ #249 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022 RIP: 0010:btrfs_lookup_csum+0x93/0x3d0 [btrfs] Call Trace: <TASK> btrfs_lookup_bio_sums+0x47a/0xdf0 [btrfs] btrfs_submit_bbio+0x43e/0x1a80 [btrfs] submit_one_bio+0xde/0x160 [btrfs] btrfs_readahead+0x498/0x6a0 [btrfs] read_pages+0x1c3/0xb20 page_cache_ra_order+0x4b5/0xc20 filemap_get_pages+0x2d3/0x19e0 filemap_read+0x314/0xde0 __kernel_read+0x35b/0x900 bprm_execve+0x62e/0x1140 do_execveat_common.isra.0+0x3fc/0x520 __x64_sys_execveat+0xdc/0x130 do_syscall_64+0x54/0x1d0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [CAUSE] Firstly the fs has a corrupted csum tree root, thus to mount the fs we have to go "ro,rescue=ibadroots" mount option. Normally with that mount option, a bad csum tree root should set BTRFS_FS_STATE_NO_DATA_CSUMS flag, so that any future data read will ignore csum search. But in this particular case, we have the following call trace that caused NULL csum root, but not setting BTRFS_FS_STATE_NO_DATA_CSUMS: load_global_roots_objectid(): ret = btrfs_search_slot(); /* Succeeded */ btrfs_item_key_to_cpu() found = true; /* We found the root item for csum tree. */ root = read_tree_root_path(); if (IS_ERR(root)) { if (!btrfs_test_opt(fs_info, IGNOREBADROOTS)) /* * Since we have rescue=ibadroots mount option, * @ret is still 0. */ break; if (!found || ret) { /* @found is true, @ret is 0, error handling for csum * tree is skipped. */ } This means we completely skipped to set BTRFS_FS_STATE_NO_DATA_CSUMS if the csum tree is corrupted, which results unexpected later csum lookup. [FIX] If read_tree_root_path() failed, always populate @ret to the error number. As at the end of the function, we need @ret to determine if we need to do the extra error handling for csum tree.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1687 Exploitation for Defense Impairment Defense Impairment
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities in security software, infrastructure, or defensive components to degrade, disable, or otherwise continue to impair their ability to prevent, detect, or respond to malicious activity.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2025-37781Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39876Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38138Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38562Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26931Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38581Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-37953Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.16 · 5.17 — 6.1.143 · 6.2 — 6.6.96 · 6.7 — 6.12.36
debian
debian linux
11.0

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
blocks

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.

finds

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References