NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-libbpf package, versions <0:6.12.35-55.103.amzn2023


Severity

Recommended
high

Based on Amazon Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.04% (9th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-AMZN2023-KERNELLIBBPF-12560005
  • published9 Sept 2025
  • disclosed10 Jul 2025

Introduced: 10 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-38337  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Amazon-Linux:2023 kernel-libbpf to version 0:6.12.35-55.103.amzn2023 or higher.
This issue was patched in ALAS2023-2025-1080.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-libbpf package and not the kernel-libbpf package as distributed by Amazon-Linux. See How to fix? for Amazon-Linux:2023 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

jbd2: fix data-race and null-ptr-deref in jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata()

Since handle->h_transaction may be a NULL pointer, so we should change it to call is_handle_aborted(handle) first before dereferencing it.

And the following data-race was reported in my fuzzer:

================================================================== BUG: KCSAN: data-race in jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata / jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata

write to 0xffff888011024104 of 4 bytes by task 10881 on cpu 1: jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata+0x2a5/0x770 fs/jbd2/transaction.c:1556 __ext4_handle_dirty_metadata+0xe7/0x4b0 fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c:358 ext4_do_update_inode fs/ext4/inode.c:5220 [inline] ext4_mark_iloc_dirty+0x32c/0xd50 fs/ext4/inode.c:5869 __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0xe1/0x450 fs/ext4/inode.c:6074 ext4_dirty_inode+0x98/0xc0 fs/ext4/inode.c:6103 ....

read to 0xffff888011024104 of 4 bytes by task 10880 on cpu 0: jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata+0xf2/0x770 fs/jbd2/transaction.c:1512 __ext4_handle_dirty_metadata+0xe7/0x4b0 fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c:358 ext4_do_update_inode fs/ext4/inode.c:5220 [inline] ext4_mark_iloc_dirty+0x32c/0xd50 fs/ext4/inode.c:5869 __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0xe1/0x450 fs/ext4/inode.c:6074 ext4_dirty_inode+0x98/0xc0 fs/ext4/inode.c:6103 ....

value changed: 0x00000000 -> 0x00000001

This issue is caused by missing data-race annotation for jh->b_modified. Therefore, the missing annotation needs to be added.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1