Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-38459 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-22682
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: atm: clip: Fix infinite recursive call of clip_push(). syzbot reported the splat below. [0] This happens if we call ioctl(ATMARP_MKIP) more than once. During the first call, clip_mkip() sets clip_push()…
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to vcc->push(), and the second call copies it to clip_vcc->old_push(). Later, when the socket is close()d, vcc_destroy_socket() passes NULL skb to clip_push(), which calls clip_vcc->old_push(), triggering the infinite recursion. Let's prevent the second ioctl(ATMARP_MKIP) by checking vcc->user_back, which is allocated by the first call as clip_vcc. Note also that we use lock_sock() to prevent racy calls. [0]: BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc9000d66fff8 (stack is ffffc9000d670000..ffffc9000d678000) Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 5322 Comm: syz.0.0 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc4-syzkaller #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:clip_push+0x5/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:191 Code: e0 8f aa 8c e8 1c ad 5b fa eb ae 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 f3 0f 1e fa 55 <41> 57 41 56 41 55 41 54 53 48 83 ec 20 48 89 f3 49 89 fd 48 bd 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc9000d670000 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 1ffff1100235a4a5 RBX: ffff888011ad2508 RCX: ffff8880003c0000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff888037f01000 RBP: dffffc0000000000 R08: ffffffff8fa104f7 R09: 1ffffffff1f4209e R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: ffffffff8a99b300 R12: ffffffff8a99b300 R13: ffff888037f01000 R14: ffff888011ad2500 R15: ffff888037f01578 FS: 000055557ab6d500(0000) GS:ffff88808d250000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: ffffc9000d66fff8 CR3: 0000000043172000 CR4: 0000000000352ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 ... clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 clip_push+0x6dc/0x720 net/atm/clip.c:200 vcc_destroy_socket net/atm/common.c:183 [inline] vcc_release+0x157/0x460 net/atm/common.c:205 __sock_release net/socket.c:647 [inline] sock_close+0xc0/0x240 net/socket.c:1391 __fput+0x449/0xa70 fs/file_table.c:465 task_work_run+0x1d1/0x260 kernel/task_work.c:227 resume_user_mode_work include/linux/resume_user_mode.h:50 [inline] exit_to_user_mode_loop+0xec/0x110 kernel/entry/common.c:114 exit_to_user_mode_prepare include/linux/entry-common.h:330 [inline] syscall_exit_to_user_mode_work include/linux/entry-common.h:414 [inline] syscall_exit_to_user_mode include/linux/entry-common.h:449 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2bd/0x3b0 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:100 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7ff31c98e929 Code: ff ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 40 00 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 a8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007fffb5aa1f78 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000001b4 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000012747 RCX: 00007ff31c98e929 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 000000000000001e RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007ff31cbb7ba0 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000db5aa226f R10: 00007ff31c7ff030 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007ff31cbb608c R13: 00007ff31cbb6080 R14: ffffffffffffffff R15: 00007fffb5aa2090 </TASK> Modules linked in:
- 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 fuzzing and bounds checks) finds out-of-bounds write flaws before deployment.
Input validation can reject or constrain data that would otherwise drive unbounded recursive calls.
Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.
DoS protection mechanisms limit the resource-exhaustion impact of uncontrolled recursion without eliminating the flaw.
Memory-protection mechanisms limit the exploitability and blast radius of a successful out-of-bounds write.
System monitoring can observe anomalous resource consumption that signals runaway recursion after it begins.
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 prevent coding errors such as missing recursion limits or termination conditions.
Runtime monitoring of compute resources can detect excessive consumption caused by uncontrolled recursion.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record uncontrolled recursion flaws before deployment.
Capacity monitoring and resource provisioning can absorb or limit the impact of runaway recursion.
Patching or replacing vulnerable software directly eliminates known instances of this coding weakness.
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 excessive recursion via static analysis or fuzzing.
Secure development life cycle requires controls that prevent uncontrolled recursion through design and code review.
Application security requirements can mandate recursion limits or stack-depth checks.
Secure system architecture principles include resource-management and input-validation rules that limit recursion.
Secure coding standards directly prohibit or constrain recursive constructs that could exhaust stack or memory.
Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.