🛡️ CVE-2025-38674 — kernel

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

Description

Revert "drm/prime: Use dma_buf from GEM object instance"

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

Revert "drm/prime: Use dma_buf from GEM object instance"

This reverts commit f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8.

The dma_buf field in struct drm_gem_object is not stable over the

object instance's lifetime. The field becomes NULL when user space

releases the final GEM handle on the buffer object. This resulted

in a NULL-pointer deref.

Workarounds in commit 5307dce878d4 ("drm/gem: Acquire references on

GEM handles for framebuffers") and commit f6bfc9afc751 ("drm/framebuffer:

Acquire internal references on GEM handles") only solved the problem

partially. They especially don't work for buffer objects without a DRM

framebuffer associated.

Hence, this revert to going back to using .import_attach->dmabuf.

v3:

  • cc stable

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.

Affected software

CVE-2025-38674 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.15.0 up to 6.15.9)
  • linux-kernel

Timeline and source

Published on 22 August 2025 and last revised on 12 August 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 (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

CVE-2025-38674 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 N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2025-08-22
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-12

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.15.0 6.15.9
linux-kernel — —

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