What is CVE-2025-38551?

CVE-2025-38551 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Improper Locking. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-08-16.

How severe is CVE-2025-38551?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2025-38551

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio-net: fix recursived rtnl_lock() during probe() The deadlock appears in a stack trace like: virtnet_probe() rtnl_lock() virtio_config_changed_work() netdev_notify_peers() rtnl_lock() It happens if the VMM sends a VIRTIO_NET_S_ANNOUNCE request while the virtio-net driver is still probing. The config_work in probe() will get scheduled until virtnet_open() enables the config change notification via virtio_config_driver_enable().

EPSS: 0.001 (1.7th 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 6.12, 6.16, df28de7b00502761eba62490f413c65c9b175ed9
Linux Linux_kernel — versions 6.16

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-667 — Improper Locking

References

416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-38551?: CVE-2025-38551 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Improper Locking. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-08-16.
How severe is CVE-2025-38551?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.