🛡️ CVE-2025-38685 on Debian — linux

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fbdev: Fix vmalloc out-of-bounds write in fast_imageblit This issue triggers when a userspace program does an ioctl FBIOPUT_CON2FBMAP by passing console number and frame buffer number. Ideally this maps console to frame buffer and updates the screen if console is visible. As part of mapping it has to do resize of console according to frame buffer info. if this resize fails and returns from vc_do_resize() and continues further. At this point console and new frame buffer are mapped and sets display vars. Despite failure still it continue to proceed updating the screen at later stages where vc_data is related to previous frame buffer and frame buffer info and display vars are mapped to new frame buffer and eventully leading to out-of-bounds write in fast_imageblit(). This bheviour is excepted only when fg_console is equal to requested console which is a visible console and updates screen with invalid struct references in fbcon_putcs().

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2025-38685 as tracked by Debian, for the package linux. The fix is available in version 6.16.3-1; earlier versions remain affected.

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 high, integrity high, availability high.

Weakness class

DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38685 is classified as CWE-787: Out-of-bounds Write. Data is written past the end or before the start of a buffer, corrupting whatever is stored there.

Affected software

DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38685 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • linux (fixed in 6.16.3-1)
  • linux-6.1 (fixed in 6.1.153-1~deb11u1)

Timeline and source

Published on 4 September 2025 and last revised on 4 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2025-38685 on other distributions

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

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2025-09-04
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-08-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
linux — 6.16.3-1
linux-6.1 — 6.1.153-1~deb11u1

Similar Threats

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