Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2025-38528

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Reject %p% format string in bprintf-like helpers static const char fmt[] = "%p%"; bpf_trace_printk(fmt, sizeof(fmt)); The above BPF program isn't rejected and causes a kernel warning at runtime: Please remove unsupported %\x00 in format string WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 7244 at lib/vsprintf.c:2680 format_decode+0x49c/0x5d0 This happens because bpf_bprintf_prepare skips over the second %, detected as punctuation, while processing %p. This patch fixes it by not skipping over punctuation. %\x00 is then processed in the next iteration and rejected.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (5.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 5th percentile — 5.1% 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-2025-38528: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

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

Affected products

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-38528?
CVE-2025-38528 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.1/10. Published 2025-08-16.
How severe is CVE-2025-38528?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.1 out of 10.
Is CVE-2025-38528 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.