Use After Free in Linux

CVE-2025-38627

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: f2fs: compress: fix UAF of f2fs_inode_info in f2fs_free_dic The decompress_io_ctx may be released asynchronously after I/O completion. If this file is deleted immediately after read, and the kworker of processing post_read_wq has not been executed yet due to high workloads, It is possible that the inode(f2fs_inode_info) is evicted and freed before it is used f2fs_free_dic. The UAF case as below: Thread A Thread B - f2fs_decompress_end_io - f2fs_put_dic - queue_work add free_dic work to post_read_wq - do_unlink - iput - evict - call_rcu This file is deleted after read. Thread C kworker to process post_read_wq - rcu_do_batch - f2fs_free_inode - kmem_cache_free inode is freed by rcu - process_scheduled_works - f2fs_late_free_dic - f2fs_free_dic - f2fs_release_decomp_mem read (dic->inode)->i_compress_algorithm This patch store compress_algorithm and sbi in dic to avoid inode UAF. In addition, the previous solution is deprecated in [1] may cause system hang. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/c36ab955-c8db-4a8b-a9d0-f07b5f426c3f@kernel.org

Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (5.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 6th percentile — 5.6% 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-2025-38627: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

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

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 6.17, bff139b49d9f70c1ac5384aac94554846aa834de, 6.1.175
  • Linux Kernel

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-38627?
CVE-2025-38627 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Use After Free. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2025-08-22.
How severe is CVE-2025-38627?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.