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.

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: 0.001 (2.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 2nd percentile — 2.4% 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-2025-38235: held from 0.001 to 0.001.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 93a0fc48948107e0cc34e1de22c3cb363a8f2783, 6.15, 0
  • 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.