CVE-2025-38300
Linux Kernel 5.5 – 6.1.142
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-38300 is a medium-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
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.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-20948
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: sun8i-ce-cipher - fix error handling in sun8i_ce_cipher_prepare() Fix two DMA cleanup issues on the error path in sun8i_ce_cipher_prepare(): 1] If dma_map_sg() fails for areq->dst, the device driver would try…
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to free DMA memory it has not allocated in the first place. To fix this, on the "theend_sgs" error path, call dma unmap only if the corresponding dma map was successful. 2] If the dma_map_single() call for the IV fails, the device driver would try to free an invalid DMA memory address on the "theend_iv" path: ------------[ cut here ]------------ DMA-API: sun8i-ce 1904000.crypto: device driver tries to free an invalid DMA memory address WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 69 at kernel/dma/debug.c:968 check_unmap+0x123c/0x1b90 Modules linked in: skcipher_example(O+) CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 69 Comm: 1904000.crypto- Tainted: G O 6.15.0-rc3+ #24 PREEMPT Tainted: [O]=OOT_MODULE Hardware name: OrangePi Zero2 (DT) pc : check_unmap+0x123c/0x1b90 lr : check_unmap+0x123c/0x1b90 ... Call trace: check_unmap+0x123c/0x1b90 (P) debug_dma_unmap_page+0xac/0xc0 dma_unmap_page_attrs+0x1f4/0x5fc sun8i_ce_cipher_do_one+0x1bd4/0x1f40 crypto_pump_work+0x334/0x6e0 kthread_worker_fn+0x21c/0x438 kthread+0x374/0x664 ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- To fix this, check for !dma_mapping_error() before calling dma_unmap_single() on the "theend_iv" path.
- 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 (static analysis, fuzzing, or runtime leak detection) directly finds missing deallocation.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate memory-management disciplines that avoid leaks at introduction.
Engineering principles applied during development can require explicit resource-release patterns that stop memory leaks from being coded.
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 enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.
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 unreleased memory, providing partial coverage of the weakness.
Secure development life cycle mandates memory-management practices that reduce missing-release defects.
Application security requirements can specify explicit memory-release rules, partially mitigating the weakness.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles include resource-management guidelines that address memory leaks.
Secure coding standards directly require proper allocation/deallocation, covering most of this weakness.
Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.