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NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-kvmsmall-devel package, versions <6.12.0-160000.6.1

Severity

 Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.16% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES1600-KERNELKVMSMALLDEVEL-14382409
  • published11 Dec 2025
  • disclosed25 Nov 2025
Report a new vulnerability Found a mistake?

Introduced: 25 Nov 2025

CVE-2025-38214  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:16.0.0 kernel-kvmsmall-devel to version 6.12.0-160000.6.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-kvmsmall-devel package and not the kernel-kvmsmall-devel package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:16.0.0 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

fbdev: Fix fb_set_var to prevent null-ptr-deref in fb_videomode_to_var

If fb_add_videomode() in fb_set_var() fails to allocate memory for fb_videomode, later it may lead to a null-ptr dereference in fb_videomode_to_var(), as the fb_info is registered while not having the mode in modelist that is expected to be there, i.e. the one that is described in fb_info->var.

================================================================ general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000001: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000008-0x000000000000000f] CPU: 1 PID: 30371 Comm: syz-executor.1 Not tainted 5.10.226-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.12.0-1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:fb_videomode_to_var+0x24/0x610 drivers/video/fbdev/core/modedb.c:901 Call Trace: display_to_var+0x3a/0x7c0 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c:929 fbcon_resize+0x3e2/0x8f0 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c:2071 resize_screen drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1176 [inline] vc_do_resize+0x53a/0x1170 drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1263 fbcon_modechanged+0x3ac/0x6e0 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c:2720 fbcon_update_vcs+0x43/0x60 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c:2776 do_fb_ioctl+0x6d2/0x740 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbmem.c:1128 fb_ioctl+0xe7/0x150 drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbmem.c:1203 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:48 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:753 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:739 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x19a/0x210 fs/ioctl.c:739 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 arch/x86/entry/common.c:46 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x67/0xd1

The reason is that fb_info->var is being modified in fb_set_var(), and then fb_videomode_to_var() is called. If it fails to add the mode to fb_info->modelist, fb_set_var() returns error, but does not restore the old value of fb_info->var. Restore fb_info->var on failure the same way it is done earlier in the function.

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.

References

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1