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-2025-38262 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); 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-2025-20799
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tty: serial: uartlite: register uart driver in init When two instances of uart devices are probing, a concurrency race can occur. If one thread calls uart_register_driver function, which first allocates…
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and assigns memory to 'uart_state' member of uart_driver structure, the other instance can bypass uart driver registration and call ulite_assign. This calls uart_add_one_port, which expects the uart driver to be fully initialized. This leads to a kernel panic due to a null pointer dereference: [ 8.143581] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000002b8 [ 8.156982] #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode [ 8.156984] #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page [ 8.156986] PGD 0 P4D 0 ... [ 8.180668] RIP: 0010:mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.188624] Call Trace: [ 8.188629] ? __die_body.cold+0x1a/0x1f [ 8.195260] ? page_fault_oops+0x15c/0x290 [ 8.209183] ? __irq_resolve_mapping+0x47/0x80 [ 8.209187] ? exc_page_fault+0x64/0x140 [ 8.209190] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 [ 8.209196] ? mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.223116] uart_add_one_port+0x60/0x440 [ 8.223122] ? proc_tty_register_driver+0x43/0x50 [ 8.223126] ? tty_register_driver+0x1ca/0x1e0 [ 8.246250] ulite_probe+0x357/0x4b0 [uartlite] To prevent it, move uart driver registration in to init function. This will ensure that uart_driver is always registered when probe function is called.
- 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 SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.
Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.
Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.
Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.