Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2025-38235
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: HID: appletb-kbd: fix "appletb_backlight" backlight device reference counting During appletb_kbd_probe, probe attempts to get the backlight device by name. When this happens backlight_device_get_by_name looks for a device in the backlight class which has name "appletb_backlight" and upon finding a match it increments the reference count for the device and returns it to the caller. However this reference is never released leading to a reference leak. Fix this by decrementing the backlight device reference count on removal via put_device and on probe failure.
EPSS: 0.001 (2.6th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
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.
Affected products
- Linux — versions 93a0fc48948107e0cc34e1de22c3cb363a8f2783, 6.15, 0
- Linux Linux_kernel — versions 6.16
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-38235?
- CVE-2025-38235 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-07-06.
- How severe is CVE-2025-38235?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.