🛡️ CVE-2025-38344 — debian-linux

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-401 NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks

ACPICA commit 8829e70e1360c81e7a5a901b5d4f48330e021ea5

I'm Seunghun Han, and I work for National Security Research Institute of

South Korea.

I have been doing a research on ACPI and found an ACPI cache leak in ACPI

early abort cases.

Boot log of ACPI cache leak is as follows:

[ 0.352414] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device)

[ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device)

[ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions)

[ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device)

[ 0.356028] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter

[ 0.356799] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281)

[ 0.360215] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-State: Slab cache still has objects

[ 0.360648] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W

4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #10

[ 0.361273] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS

virtual_box 12/01/2006

[ 0.361873] Call Trace:

[ 0.362243] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81

[ 0.362591] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0

[ 0.362944] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27

[ 0.363296] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10

[ 0.363646] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b

[ 0.364000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14

[ 0.364000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f

[ 0.364000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80

[ 0.364000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f

[ 0.364000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27

[ 0.364000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0

[ 0.364000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a

[ 0.364000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0

[ 0.364000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100

[ 0.364000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30

I analyzed this memory leak in detail. I found that “Acpi-State” cache and

“Acpi-Parse” cache were merged because the size of cache objects was same

slab cache size.

I finally found “Acpi-Parse” cache and “Acpi-parse_ext” cache were leaked

using SLAB_NEVER_MERGE flag in kmem_cache_create() function.

Real ACPI cache leak point is as follows:

[ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device)

[ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device)

[ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions)

[ 0.361043] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device)

[ 0.364016] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter

[ 0.365061] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281)

[ 0.368174] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-Parse: Slab cache still has objects

[ 0.369332] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W

4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8

[ 0.371256] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS

virtual_box 12/01/2006

[ 0.372000] Call Trace:

[ 0.372000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81

[ 0.372000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x56/0x7b

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f

[ 0.372000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80

[ 0.372000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f

[ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27

[ 0.372000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0

[ 0.372000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a

[ 0.372000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0

[ 0.372000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100

[ 0.372000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30

[ 0.388039] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-parse_ext: Slab cache still has objects

[ 0.389063] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W

4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8

[ 0.390557] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS

virtual_box 12/01/2006

[ 0.392000] Call Trace:

[ 0.392000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81

[ 0.392000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0

[ 0.392000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27

[ 0.392000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10

[ 0.392000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b

[ 0.392000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14

[ 0.392000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x3

---truncated---

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

Weakness class

CVE-2025-38344 is classified as CWE-401: Memory Leak. Allocated memory is never released, so long-running or repeated operations gradually exhaust it.

Affected software

CVE-2025-38344 is recorded against 3 packages.

  • debian-linux
  • kernel (from 6.13.0 up to 6.15.4)
  • linux-kernel (from 6.13 up to 6.15.4)

Timeline and source

Published on 10 July 2025 and last revised on 17 June 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
git.kernel.org
lists.debian.org
lists.debian.org

CVE-2025-38344 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity MEDIUM
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE CWE-401
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2025-07-10
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-06-17

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
debian-linux — —
kernel 6.13.0 6.15.4
linux-kernel 6.13 6.15.4

References

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