Security Resilience

CVE-2025-38458

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 2.6.13 – 5.4.296

Published
25 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 7th 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-2025-38458 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 Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); 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-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: atm: clip: Fix NULL pointer dereference in vcc_sendmsg() atmarpd_dev_ops does not implement the send method, which may cause crash as bellow. BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 PGD 0…

more

P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0010 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 5324 Comm: syz.0.0 Not tainted 6.15.0-rc6-syzkaller-00346-g5723cc3450bc #0 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:0x0 Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at 0xffffffffffffffd6. RSP: 0018:ffffc9000d3cf778 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 1ffffffff1910dd1 RBX: 00000000000000c0 RCX: dffffc0000000000 RDX: ffffc9000dc82000 RSI: ffff88803e4c4640 RDI: ffff888052cd0000 RBP: ffffc9000d3cf8d0 R08: ffff888052c9143f R09: 1ffff1100a592287 R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 1ffff92001a79f00 R13: ffff888052cd0000 R14: ffff88803e4c4640 R15: ffffffff8c886e88 FS: 00007fbc762566c0(0000) GS:ffff88808d6c2000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: ffffffffffffffd6 CR3: 0000000041f1b000 CR4: 0000000000352ef0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> vcc_sendmsg+0xa10/0xc50 net/atm/common.c:644 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:712 [inline] __sock_sendmsg+0x219/0x270 net/socket.c:727 ____sys_sendmsg+0x52d/0x830 net/socket.c:2566 ___sys_sendmsg+0x21f/0x2a0 net/socket.c:2620 __sys_sendmmsg+0x227/0x430 net/socket.c:2709 __do_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2736 [inline] __se_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2733 [inline] __x64_sys_sendmmsg+0xa0/0xc0 net/socket.c:2733 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf6/0x210 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1687 Exploitation for Defense Impairment Defense Impairment
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities in security software, infrastructure, or defensive components to degrade, disable, or otherwise continue to impair their ability to prevent, detect, or respond to malicious activity.
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.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2025-37830Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38260Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38455Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-37781Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39876Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38138Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38562Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26931Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38581Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
2.6.12, 6.16 · 2.6.13 — 5.4.296 · 5.5 — 5.10.240 · 5.11 — 5.15.189
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
blocks

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

References