Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2025-38071
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/mm: Check return value from memblock_phys_alloc_range() At least with CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START=0x100000, if there is < 4 MiB of contiguous free memory available at this point, the kernel will crash and burn because memblock_phys_alloc_range() returns 0 on failure, which leads memblock_phys_free() to throw the first 4 MiB of physical memory to the wolves. At a minimum it should fail gracefully with a meaningful diagnostic, but in fact everything seems to work fine without the weird reserve allocation.
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.002 (7.2th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 7th percentile — 7.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Linux — versions a7259df7670240ee03b0cfce8a3e5d3773911e24, 5.15, 0
- Linux Kernel
- Debian Linux — versions 11.0
Public proof-of-concept exploits
References
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 (Third Party Advisory)
- 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-38071?
- CVE-2025-38071 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-06-18.
- How severe is CVE-2025-38071?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
- Is CVE-2025-38071 known to be exploited?
- 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.