CVE-2025-38735 Affecting linux-6.1 package, versions <6.1.153-1~deb11u1


Severity

Recommended
low

Based on default assessment until relevant scores are available.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.03% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-DEBIAN11-LINUX61-13542129
  • published14 Oct 2025
  • disclosed5 Sept 2025

Introduced: 5 Sep 2025

CVE-2025-38735  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Debian:11 linux-6.1 to version 6.1.153-1~deb11u1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream linux-6.1 package and not the linux-6.1 package as distributed by Debian. See How to fix? for Debian:11 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown

A crash can occur if an ethtool operation is invoked after shutdown() is called.

shutdown() is invoked during system shutdown to stop DMA operations without performing expensive deallocations. It is discouraged to unregister the netdev in this path, so the device may still be visible to userspace and kernel helpers.

In gve, shutdown() tears down most internal data structures. If an ethtool operation is dispatched after shutdown(), it will dereference freed or NULL pointers, leading to a kernel panic. While graceful shutdown normally quiesces userspace before invoking the reboot syscall, forced shutdowns (as observed on GCP VMs) can still trigger this path.

Fix by calling netif_device_detach() in shutdown(). This marks the device as detached so the ethtool ioctl handler will skip dispatching operations to the driver.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1