CVE-2025-38470 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2025-38470
Vulnerability Scoring

Analysis In Progress
Analysis In Progress

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity:
    Attack Complexity Analysis In Progress
  • Attack Vector:
    Attack Vector Under Analysis
  • Privileges Required: None
    No authentication is required for exploitation.
  • Scope:
    Impact is confined to the initially vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2025-38470 Details

Status: Awaiting Analysis

Last updated: 🕑 29 Jul 2025, 14:14 UTC
Originally published on: 🕛 28 Jul 2025, 12:15 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 1 days

CVSS Release:

CVE-2025-38470 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2025-38470: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: vlan: fix VLAN 0 refcount imbalance of toggling filtering during runtime Assuming the "rx-vlan-filter" feature is enabled on a net device, the 8021q module will automatically add or remove VLAN 0 when the net device is put administratively up or down, respectively. There are a couple of problems with the above scheme. The first problem is a memory leak that can happen if the "rx-vlan-filter" feature is disabled while the device is running: # ip link add bond1 up type bond mode 0 # ethtool -K bond1 rx-vlan-filter off # ip link del dev bond1 When the device is put administratively down the "rx-vlan-filter" feature is disabled, so the 8021q module will not remove VLAN 0 and the memory will be leaked [1]. Another problem that can happen is that the kernel can automatically delete VLAN 0 when the device is put administratively down despite not adding it when the device was put administratively up since during that time the "rx-vlan-filter" feature was disabled. null-ptr-unref or bug_on[2] will be triggered by unregister_vlan_dev() for refcount imbalance if toggling filtering during runtime: $ ip link add bond0 type bond mode 0 $ ip link add link bond0 name vlan0 type vlan id 0 protocol 802.1q $ ethtool -K bond0 rx-vlan-filter off $ ifconfig bond0 up $ ethtool -K bond0 rx-vlan-filter on $ ifconfig bond0 down $ ip link del vlan0 Root cause is as below: step1: add vlan0 for real_dev, such as bond, team. register_vlan_dev vlan_vid_add(real_dev,htons(ETH_P_8021Q),0) //refcnt=1 step2: disable vlan filter feature and enable real_dev step3: change filter from 0 to 1 vlan_device_event vlan_filter_push_vids ndo_vlan_rx_add_vid //No refcnt added to real_dev vlan0 step4: real_dev down vlan_device_event vlan_vid_del(dev, htons(ETH_P_8021Q), 0); //refcnt=0 vlan_info_rcu_free //free vlan0 step5: delete vlan0 unregister_vlan_dev BUG_ON(!vlan_info); //vlan_info is null Fix both problems by noting in the VLAN info whether VLAN 0 was automatically added upon NETDEV_UP and based on that decide whether it should be deleted upon NETDEV_DOWN, regardless of the state of the "rx-vlan-filter" feature. [1] unreferenced object 0xffff8880068e3100 (size 256): comm "ip", pid 384, jiffies 4296130254 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 20 30 0d 80 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 . 0............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace (crc 81ce31fa): __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x2b5/0x340 vlan_vid_add+0x434/0x940 vlan_device_event.cold+0x75/0xa8 notifier_call_chain+0xca/0x150 __dev_notify_flags+0xe3/0x250 rtnl_configure_link+0x193/0x260 rtnl_newlink_create+0x383/0x8e0 __rtnl_newlink+0x22c/0xa40 rtnl_newlink+0x627/0xb00 rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x6fb/0xb70 netlink_rcv_skb+0x11f/0x350 netlink_unicast+0x426/0x710 netlink_sendmsg+0x75a/0xc20 __sock_sendmsg+0xc1/0x150 ____sys_sendmsg+0x5aa/0x7b0 ___sys_sendmsg+0xfc/0x180 [2] kernel BUG at net/8021q/vlan.c:99! Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN PTI CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 382 Comm: ip Not tainted 6.16.0-rc3 #61 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:unregister_vlan_dev (net/8021q/vlan.c:99 (discriminator 1)) RSP: 0018:ffff88810badf310 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff88810da84000 RCX: ffffffffb47ceb9a RDX: dffffc0000000000 RSI: 0000000000000008 RDI: ffff88810e8b43c8 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: fffffbfff6cefe80 R10: ffffffffb677f407 R11: ffff88810badf3c0 R12: ffff88810e8b4000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff88810642a5c0 R15: 000000000000017e FS: 00007f1ff68c20c0(0000) GS:ffff888163a24000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f1ff5dad240 CR3: 0000000107e56000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 Call Trace: <TASK ---truncated---

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2025-38470

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2025-38470 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2025-38470

No exploitability data is available for CVE-2025-38470.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2025-38470, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2025-38470, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: None
    CVE-2025-38470 does not compromise confidentiality.
  • Integrity: None
    CVE-2025-38470 does not impact data integrity.
  • Availability: None
    CVE-2025-38470 does not affect system availability.

CVE-2025-38470 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

Unknown

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