CVE-2025-38008: linux Race Condition

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-38008 is a medium (CVSS 4.7) Race Condition vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 18-06-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/page_alloc: fix race condition in unaccepted memory handling The page allocator tracks the number of zones that have unaccepted memory using static_branch_enc/dec() and uses that static branch in hot paths to determine if it needs to deal with unaccepted memory. Borislav and Thomas pointed out that the tracking is racy: operations on static_branch are not serialized against adding/removing unaccepted pages to/from the zone. Sanity checks inside static_branch machinery detects it: WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 10 at kernel/jump_label.c:276 __static_key_slow_dec_cpuslocked+0x8e/0xa0 The comment around the WARN() explains the problem: /* * Warn about the '-1' case though; since that means a * decrement is concurrent with a first (0->1) increment. IOW * people are trying to disable something that wasn't yet fully * enabled. This suggests an ordering problem on the user side. */ The effect of this static_branch optimization is only visible on microbenchmark. Instead of adding more complexity around it, remove it altogether.

• CWE-362Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')The product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.