Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2025-38709
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: loop: Avoid updating block size under exclusive owner Syzbot came up with a reproducer where a loop device block size is changed underneath a mounted filesystem. This causes a mismatch between the block device block size and the block size stored in the superblock causing confusion in various places such as fs/buffer.c. The particular issue triggered by syzbot was a warning in __getblk_slow() due to requested buffer size not matching block device block size. Fix the problem by getting exclusive hold of the loop device to change its block size. This fails if somebody (such as filesystem) has already an exclusive ownership of the block device and thus prevents modifying the loop device under some exclusive owner which doesn't expect it.
EPSS: 0.001 (4.4th 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 89e4fdecb51cf5535867026274bc97de9480ade5, 4.14, 0
- Linux Linux_kernel
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2025-38709?
- CVE-2025-38709 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-09-04.
- How severe is CVE-2025-38709?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.