Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-38337 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 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
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-20909
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: jbd2: fix data-race and null-ptr-deref in jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata() Since handle->h_transaction may be a NULL pointer, so we should change it to call is_handle_aborted(handle) first before dereferencing it. And the following data-race…
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was reported in my fuzzer: ================================================================== BUG: KCSAN: data-race in jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata / jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata write to 0xffff888011024104 of 4 bytes by task 10881 on cpu 1: jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata+0x2a5/0x770 fs/jbd2/transaction.c:1556 __ext4_handle_dirty_metadata+0xe7/0x4b0 fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c:358 ext4_do_update_inode fs/ext4/inode.c:5220 [inline] ext4_mark_iloc_dirty+0x32c/0xd50 fs/ext4/inode.c:5869 __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0xe1/0x450 fs/ext4/inode.c:6074 ext4_dirty_inode+0x98/0xc0 fs/ext4/inode.c:6103 .... read to 0xffff888011024104 of 4 bytes by task 10880 on cpu 0: jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata+0xf2/0x770 fs/jbd2/transaction.c:1512 __ext4_handle_dirty_metadata+0xe7/0x4b0 fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c:358 ext4_do_update_inode fs/ext4/inode.c:5220 [inline] ext4_mark_iloc_dirty+0x32c/0xd50 fs/ext4/inode.c:5869 __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0xe1/0x450 fs/ext4/inode.c:6074 ext4_dirty_inode+0x98/0xc0 fs/ext4/inode.c:6103 .... value changed: 0x00000000 -> 0x00000001 ================================================================== This issue is caused by missing data-race annotation for jh->b_modified. Therefore, the missing annotation needs to be added.
- 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.