5.5

CVE-2025-38243: btrfs: fix invalid inode pointer dereferences during log replay

Analyzed
AliasesUBUNTU-CVE-2025-38243
Published 09-07-2025Last modified 11-05-2026

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-38243 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 5.5, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
5.5/10
010
Medium · v3.1 (NVD)
EPSS score
0.16%
0%100%
Low · +0.01 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedNot listed by any tracked catalog.
RansomwareNot flaggedNo ransomware use recorded.
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 13 · Related 13
OPENSUSE-SU-2026:20287-1SUSE-SU-2026:0447-1SUSE-SU-2026:0471-1SUSE-SU-2026:0472-1SUSE-SU-2026:0587-1SUSE-SU-2026:20477-1

Timeline

  1. 09-07-2025
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 11-05-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix invalid inode pointer dereferences during log replay In a few places where we call read_one_inode(), if we get a NULL pointer we end up jumping into an error path, or fallthrough in case of __add_inode_ref(), where we then do something like this: iput(&inode->vfs_inode); which results in an invalid inode pointer that triggers an invalid memory access, resulting in a crash. Fix this by making sure we don't do such dereferences.

CVSS metrics

2 scores · 2 sources · 1 version

EPSS trend

Probability

0.16%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

6%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

Increase +0.01 pp

From 0.15% on 04-10-2026

04-10-202603-11-2026

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEV

Not in the CISA KEV catalog.

ENISA CNW

Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.

CIRCL

Not in the CIRCL catalog.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Version check

Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.

Ubuntu81 products
  • linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.13All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
Linux2 products
  • linux≥ 0502d1127436a69b8c2e7cf309ae0ebff3332668, < 401d098f92ea69d8a75f8b845daf343e511681ba | ≥ b4c50cbb01a1b6901d2b94469636dd80fa93de81, < ba8386d662cc51cc5382688bbf7a152b0b0b27cf | ≥ b4c50cbb01a1b6901d2b94469636dd80fa93de81, < 2dcf838cf5c2f0f4501edaa1680fcad03618d760 | 6.15
  • linux_kernel≥ 6.15, < 6.15.5 | 6.16:rc1 | 6.16:rc2 | 6.16:rc3

2 vendors · 83 products

References

6 links