CVE-2025-38735

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel 5.17-6.16.3 - NULL Pointer Dereference via Ethtool Operations

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown A crash can occur if an ethtool operation is invoked after shutdown() is called. shutdown() is invoked during system shutdown to stop DMA operations without performing expensive deallocations. It is discouraged to unregister the netdev in this path, so the device may still be visible to userspace and kernel helpers. In gve, shutdown() tears down most internal data structures. If an ethtool operation is dispatched after shutdown(), it will dereference freed or NULL pointers, leading to a kernel panic. While graceful shutdown normally quiesces userspace before invoking the reboot syscall, forced shutdowns (as observed on GCP VMs) can still trigger this path. Fix by calling netif_device_detach() in shutdown(). This marks the device as detached so the ethtool ioctl handler will skip dispatching operations to the driver.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0002
EPSS Percentile 6.9%
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 (19)
debian/debian_linux 11.0
linux/Kernel 5.17.0 - 6.1.149linux
linux/Kernel 6.13.0 - 6.16.4linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.103linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.44linux
Linux/Linux < 5.17
Linux/Linux 5.17
Linux/Linux 6.1.149 - 6.1.*
Linux/Linux 6.12.44 - 6.12.*
Linux/Linux 6.16.4 - 6.16.*
... and 9 more
Published Sep 05, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026