CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-38350 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.8

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: Always pass notifications when child class becomes empty Certain classful qdiscs may invoke their classes' dequeue handler on an enqueue operation. This may unexpectedly empty the child qdisc and thus make an in-flight class passive via qlen_notify(). Most qdiscs do not expect such behaviour at this point in time and may re-activate the class eventually anyways which will lead to a use-after-free. The referenced fix commit attempted to fix this behavior for the HFSC case by moving the backlog accounting around, though this turned out to be incomplete since the parent's parent may run into the issue too. The following reproducer demonstrates this use-after-free: tc qdisc add dev lo root handle 1: drr tc filter add dev lo parent 1: basic classid 1:1 tc class add dev lo parent 1: classid 1:1 drr tc qdisc add dev lo parent 1:1 handle 2: hfsc def 1 tc class add dev lo parent 2: classid 2:1 hfsc rt m1 8 d 1 m2 0 tc qdisc add dev lo parent 2:1 handle 3: netem tc qdisc add dev lo parent 3:1 handle 4: blackhole echo 1 | socat -u STDIN UDP4-DATAGRAM:127.0.0.1:8888 tc class delete dev lo classid 1:1 echo 1 | socat…

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.1)
Published
2025-07-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-416

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 6.15
  • linux / linux_kernel / 6.16

Showing 3 representative product identities from 14 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Use-after-free, double free, and expired resource use

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace ownership, references, callbacks, asynchronous tasks, and teardown paths around the affected object or resource.
  • Identify reachable inputs and timing or state transitions that can release the object while references remain.
  • Confirm affected builds, allocators, feature flags, architectures, and process privileges.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained ownership or lifetime fix and rebuild all artifacts containing the affected native code.
  • Use explicit ownership, safe reference management, cancellation and join semantics, and idempotent teardown.
  • Add deterministic lifetime tests plus isolated sanitizer and concurrency coverage for shutdown and error paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.