CVE-2025-38262

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel - NULL Pointer Dereference in UART Driver Registration

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tty: serial: uartlite: register uart driver in init When two instances of uart devices are probing, a concurrency race can occur. If one thread calls uart_register_driver function, which first allocates and assigns memory to 'uart_state' member of uart_driver structure, the other instance can bypass uart driver registration and call ulite_assign. This calls uart_add_one_port, which expects the uart driver to be fully initialized. This leads to a kernel panic due to a null pointer dereference: [ 8.143581] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000002b8 [ 8.156982] #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode [ 8.156984] #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page [ 8.156986] PGD 0 P4D 0 ... [ 8.180668] RIP: 0010:mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.188624] Call Trace: [ 8.188629] ? __die_body.cold+0x1a/0x1f [ 8.195260] ? page_fault_oops+0x15c/0x290 [ 8.209183] ? __irq_resolve_mapping+0x47/0x80 [ 8.209187] ? exc_page_fault+0x64/0x140 [ 8.209190] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 [ 8.209196] ? mutex_lock+0x19/0x30 [ 8.223116] uart_add_one_port+0x60/0x440 [ 8.223122] ? proc_tty_register_driver+0x43/0x50 [ 8.223126] ? tty_register_driver+0x1ca/0x1e0 [ 8.246250] ulite_probe+0x357/0x4b0 [uartlite] To prevent it, move uart driver registration in to init function. This will ensure that uart_driver is always registered when probe function is called.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0005
EPSS Percentile 17.0%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-476
Status published
Products (24)
debian/debian_linux 11.0
linux/Kernel 2.6.20 - 5.4.296linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.143linux
linux/Kernel 5.5.0 - 5.15.187linux
linux/Kernel 6.13.0 - 6.15.5linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.96linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.36linux
Linux/Linux < 2.6.20
Linux/Linux 2.6.20
Linux/Linux 238b8721a554a33a451a3f13bdb5be8fe5cfc927 - 5015eed450005bab6e5cb6810f7a62eab0434fc4
... and 14 more
Published Jul 09, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026