Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2025-38509
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: mac80211: reject VHT opmode for unsupported channel widths VHT operating mode notifications are not defined for channel widths below 20 MHz. In particular, 5 MHz and 10 MHz are not valid under the VHT specification and must be rejected. Without this check, malformed notifications using these widths may reach ieee80211_chan_width_to_rx_bw(), leading to a WARN_ON due to invalid input. This issue was reported by syzbot. Reject these unsupported widths early in sta_link_apply_parameters() when opmode_notif is used. The accepted set includes 20, 40, 80, 160, and 80+80 MHz, which are valid for VHT. While 320 MHz is not defined for VHT, it is allowed to avoid rejecting HE or EHT clients that may still send a VHT opmode notification.
EPSS: 0.001 (2.8th 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 751e7489c1d74b94ffffbed619d8fd724eeff4ee, 6.13, 0
- Linux Linux_kernel — versions 6.16
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-38509?
- CVE-2025-38509 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-08-16.
- How severe is CVE-2025-38509?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.