CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-38121 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: iwlwifi: mld: avoid panic on init failure In case of an error during init, in_hw_restart will be set, but it will never get cleared. Instead, we will retry to init again, and then we will act like we are in a restart when we are actually not. This causes (among others) to a NULL pointer dereference when canceling rx_omi::finished_work, that was not even initialized, because we thought that we are in hw_restart. Set in_hw_restart to true only if the fw is running, then we know that FW was loaded successfully and we are not going to the retry loop.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2025-07-03
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-476

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

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Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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