CVE-2025-38089
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel, where a specially crafted RPC packet could cause data corruption or trigger a system panic. This flaw allows a remote attacker who can make RPC calls to send an intentionally malformed packet, potentially compromising system integrity or causing a denial of service (DoS).
Statement
This vulnerability is caused by incorrect error handling in the Linux kernel's RPC code. When a malformed packet is sent during RPC authentication, the kernel does not correctly set an authorization status field pointer to a sensible value. When that pointer is later dereferenced, an affected system might either crash due to a NULL pointer dereference, or garbage data might be written to another memory address, impacting system integrity.
Mitigation
Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update the affected package as soon as possible. Additionally, to protect against this and other similar vulnerabilities, ensure appropriate access controls are in place to prevent unauthorized use of RPC-based services.
If SunRPC not being used, then to mitigate this issue to prevent the sunrpc module from being loaded. Please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for information on how to blacklist a kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7.1 | 5.5 | 9.8 |
| Attack Vector | Network | Local | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | Low |
| Privileges Required | Low | Low | None |
| User Interaction | None | None | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | None | High |
| Integrity Impact | Low | None | High |
| Availability Impact | High | High | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Integrity,Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; Unexpected State
The data which were produced as a result of a function call could be in a bad state upon return. If the return value is not checked, then this bad data may be used in operations, possibly leading to a crash or other unintended behaviors.
Frequently Asked Questions
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