CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-38244 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: fix potential deadlock when reconnecting channels Fix cifs_signal_cifsd_for_reconnect() to take the correct lock order and prevent the following deadlock from happening ====================================================== WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected 6.16.0-rc3-build2+ #1301 Tainted: G S W ------------------------------------------------------ cifsd/6055 is trying to acquire lock: ffff88810ad56038 (&tcp_ses->srv_lock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: cifs_signal_cifsd_for_reconnect+0x134/0x200 but task is already holding lock: ffff888119c64330 (&ret_buf->chan_lock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: cifs_signal_cifsd_for_reconnect+0xcf/0x200 which lock already depends on the new lock. the existing dependency chain (in reverse order) is: -> #2 (&ret_buf->chan_lock){+.+.}-{3:3}: validate_chain+0x1cf/0x270 __lock_acquire+0x60e/0x780 lock_acquire.part.0+0xb4/0x1f0 _raw_spin_lock+0x2f/0x40 cifs_setup_session+0x81/0x4b0 cifs_get_smb_ses+0x771/0x900 cifs_mount_get_session+0x7e/0x170 cifs_mount+0x92/0x2d0 cifs_smb3_do_mount+0x161/0x460 smb3_get_tree+0x55/0x90 vfs_get_tree+0x46/0x180 do_new_mount+0x1b0/0x2e0 path_mo…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2025-07-09
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-667

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 6.16

Showing 2 representative product identities from 6 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

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Check exposure

  • Map concurrent actors, shared state, lock boundaries, signals, callbacks, retries, and check-then-use sequences in the affected path.
  • Determine whether untrusted users can influence timing, object names, filesystem state, or repeated state transitions.
  • Identify clustered and multi-process behavior that repository-local tests may not represent.

Remediate safely

  • Make the sensitive state transition atomic or protect it with a consistently ordered synchronization primitive.
  • Perform authorization and invariant checks on the same authoritative object and transaction used for the operation.
  • Use unique private resources, safe ownership transfer, and idempotent operations; add deterministic concurrency regression tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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