CVE Catalog

CVE-2025-38675

HighCVSS 7.8
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.12%

2th percentile - higher than 2% of all known CVEs

Summary

An initialization issue with state_ptrs was found in the xfrm_state_find function of the Linux kernel. Under preemption, a state lookup could hit a different CPU, and if a cached state was found, it was ignored and the 'acquire' block was entered using uninitialized state_ptrs.

Risk Assessment

This could lead to incorrect behavior of the XFRM (IPsec) mechanism, potentially causing packet processing errors or security breaches.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that initializes state_ptrs right after taking rcu_read_lock.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfrm: state: initialize state_ptrs earlier in xfrm_state_find In case of preemption, xfrm_state_look_at will find a different pcpu_id and look up states for that other CPU. If we matched a state for CPU2 in the state_cache while the lookup started on CPU1, we will jump to "found", but the "best" state that we got will be ignored and we will enter the "acquire" block. This block uses state_ptrs, which isn't initialized at this point. Let's initialize state_ptrs just after taking rcu_read_lock. This will also prevent a possible misuse in the future, if someone adjusts this function.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS