Out-of-bounds Read in Linux

CVE-2025-38111

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/mdiobus: Fix potential out-of-bounds read/write access When using publicly available tools like 'mdio-tools' to read/write data from/to network interface and its PHY via mdiobus, there is no verification of parameters passed to the ioctl and it accepts any mdio address. Currently there is support for 32 addresses in kernel via PHY_MAX_ADDR define, but it is possible to pass higher value than that via ioctl. While read/write operation should generally fail in this case, mdiobus provides stats array, where wrong address may allow out-of-bounds read/write. Fix that by adding address verification before read/write operation. While this excludes this access from any statistics, it improves security of read/write operation.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (9.5th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 10th percentile — 9.5% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2025-38111: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-38111?
CVE-2025-38111 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Read. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2025-07-03.
How severe is CVE-2025-38111?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-38111 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.