NULL pointer dereference in Linux

CVE-2025-38420

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: carl9170: do not ping device which has failed to load firmware Syzkaller reports [1, 2] crashes caused by an attempts to ping the device which has failed to load firmware. Since such a device doesn't pass 'ieee80211_register_hw()', an internal workqueue managed by 'ieee80211_queue_work()' is not yet created and an attempt to queue work on it causes null-ptr-deref. [1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=9a4aec827829942045ff [2] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=0d8afba53e8fb2633217

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 (6.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 7th percentile — 6.9% 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-2025-38420: 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-2025-38420?
CVE-2025-38420 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-07-25.
How severe is CVE-2025-38420?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-38420 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.