Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-38320

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 4.8 – 5.4.295

Published
10 July 2025
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0018 7th percentile
Risk Priority 51 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-2025-38320 is a high-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 7th 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

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: arm64/ptrace: Fix stack-out-of-bounds read in regs_get_kernel_stack_nth() KASAN reports a stack-out-of-bounds read in regs_get_kernel_stack_nth(). Call Trace: [ 97.283505] BUG: KASAN: stack-out-of-bounds in regs_get_kernel_stack_nth+0xa8/0xc8 [ 97.284677] Read of size 8 at addr…

more

ffff800089277c10 by task 1.sh/2550 [ 97.285732] [ 97.286067] CPU: 7 PID: 2550 Comm: 1.sh Not tainted 6.6.0+ #11 [ 97.287032] Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) [ 97.287815] Call trace: [ 97.288279] dump_backtrace+0xa0/0x128 [ 97.288946] show_stack+0x20/0x38 [ 97.289551] dump_stack_lvl+0x78/0xc8 [ 97.290203] print_address_description.constprop.0+0x84/0x3c8 [ 97.291159] print_report+0xb0/0x280 [ 97.291792] kasan_report+0x84/0xd0 [ 97.292421] __asan_load8+0x9c/0xc0 [ 97.293042] regs_get_kernel_stack_nth+0xa8/0xc8 [ 97.293835] process_fetch_insn+0x770/0xa30 [ 97.294562] kprobe_trace_func+0x254/0x3b0 [ 97.295271] kprobe_dispatcher+0x98/0xe0 [ 97.295955] kprobe_breakpoint_handler+0x1b0/0x210 [ 97.296774] call_break_hook+0xc4/0x100 [ 97.297451] brk_handler+0x24/0x78 [ 97.298073] do_debug_exception+0xac/0x178 [ 97.298785] el1_dbg+0x70/0x90 [ 97.299344] el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 [ 97.300066] el1h_64_sync+0x78/0x80 [ 97.300699] kernel_clone+0x0/0x500 [ 97.301331] __arm64_sys_clone+0x70/0x90 [ 97.302084] invoke_syscall+0x68/0x198 [ 97.302746] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x11c/0x150 [ 97.303569] do_el0_svc+0x38/0x50 [ 97.304164] el0_svc+0x44/0x1d8 [ 97.304749] el0t_64_sync_handler+0x100/0x130 [ 97.305500] el0t_64_sync+0x188/0x190 [ 97.306151] [ 97.306475] The buggy address belongs to stack of task 1.sh/2550 [ 97.307461] and is located at offset 0 in frame: [ 97.308257] __se_sys_clone+0x0/0x138 [ 97.308910] [ 97.309241] This frame has 1 object: [ 97.309873] [48, 184) 'args' [ 97.309876] [ 97.310749] The buggy address belongs to the virtual mapping at [ 97.310749] [ffff800089270000, ffff800089279000) created by: [ 97.310749] dup_task_struct+0xc0/0x2e8 [ 97.313347] [ 97.313674] The buggy address belongs to the physical page: [ 97.314604] page: refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x14f69a [ 97.315885] flags: 0x15ffffe00000000(node=1|zone=2|lastcpupid=0xfffff) [ 97.316957] raw: 015ffffe00000000 0000000000000000 dead000000000122 0000000000000000 [ 97.318207] raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000001ffffffff 0000000000000000 [ 97.319445] page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected [ 97.320371] [ 97.320694] Memory state around the buggy address: [ 97.321511] ffff800089277b00: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [ 97.322681] ffff800089277b80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [ 97.323846] >ffff800089277c00: 00 00 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [ 97.325023] ^ [ 97.325683] ffff800089277c80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f3 f3 f3 f3 f3 f3 f3 [ 97.326856] ffff800089277d00: f3 f3 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 This issue seems to be related to the behavior of some gcc compilers and was also fixed on the s390 architecture before: commit d93a855c31b7 ("s390/ptrace: Avoid KASAN false positives in regs_get_kernel_stack_nth()") As described in that commit, regs_get_kernel_stack_nth() has confirmed that `addr` is on the stack, so reading the value at `*addr` should be allowed. Use READ_ONCE_NOCHECK() helper to silence the KASAN check for this case. [will: Use '*addr' as the argument to READ_ONCE_NOCHECK()]

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1211 Exploitation for Stealth Stealth
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities to evade detection by hiding activity, suppressing logging, or operating within trusted or unmonitored components.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-39685Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39817Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-37879Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26970Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38714Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39806Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39839Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38004Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38497Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38679Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.16 · 4.8 — 5.4.295 · 5.5 — 5.10.239 · 5.11 — 5.15.186
debian
debian linux
11.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation directly finds out-of-bounds read flaws through static analysis, fuzzing, and dynamic bounds checks.

Secure engineering principles require bounds checking and memory-safe constructs that stop out-of-bounds reads from being introduced.

Process isolation confines the effects of an out-of-bounds read to the compromised process.

Input validation rejects malformed indices or lengths that would otherwise cause reads outside buffer bounds.

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
prevents

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

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 in development and acceptance includes fuzzing and static analysis that detect out-of-bounds read defects before release.

A.8.15 Logging partial match
finds

Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

prevents

Application security requirements include explicit bounds and memory-safety specifications that mitigate buffer over-reads.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles require memory-safe design patterns and runtime protections against out-of-bounds access.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and mandate bounds-checked reads, eliminating CWE-125.

References