Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-38328

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 2.6.18 – 5.4.295

Published
10 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 0.0018 8th 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-2025-38328 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 Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 8th 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: jffs2: check jffs2_prealloc_raw_node_refs() result in few other places Fuzzing hit another invalid pointer dereference due to the lack of checking whether jffs2_prealloc_raw_node_refs() completed successfully. Subsequent logic implies that the node…

more

refs have been allocated. Handle that. The code is ready for propagating the error upwards. KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000008-0x000000000000000f] CPU: 1 PID: 5835 Comm: syz-executor145 Not tainted 5.10.234-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.12.0-1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:jffs2_link_node_ref+0xac/0x690 fs/jffs2/nodelist.c:600 Call Trace: jffs2_mark_erased_block fs/jffs2/erase.c:460 [inline] jffs2_erase_pending_blocks+0x688/0x1860 fs/jffs2/erase.c:118 jffs2_garbage_collect_pass+0x638/0x1a00 fs/jffs2/gc.c:253 jffs2_reserve_space+0x3f4/0xad0 fs/jffs2/nodemgmt.c:167 jffs2_write_inode_range+0x246/0xb50 fs/jffs2/write.c:362 jffs2_write_end+0x712/0x1110 fs/jffs2/file.c:302 generic_perform_write+0x2c2/0x500 mm/filemap.c:3347 __generic_file_write_iter+0x252/0x610 mm/filemap.c:3465 generic_file_write_iter+0xdb/0x230 mm/filemap.c:3497 call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:2039 [inline] do_iter_readv_writev+0x46d/0x750 fs/read_write.c:740 do_iter_write+0x18c/0x710 fs/read_write.c:866 vfs_writev+0x1db/0x6a0 fs/read_write.c:939 do_pwritev fs/read_write.c:1036 [inline] __do_sys_pwritev fs/read_write.c:1083 [inline] __se_sys_pwritev fs/read_write.c:1078 [inline] __x64_sys_pwritev+0x235/0x310 fs/read_write.c:1078 do_syscall_64+0x30/0x40 arch/x86/entry/common.c:46 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x67/0xd1 Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
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.
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-39675Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39838Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38362Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38569Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39676Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26771Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38167Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38337Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38147Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-37949Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
2.6.18 — 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 (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
prevents

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 SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

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

References