7.8

CVE-2025-38735: gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown

Modified
AliasesUBUNTU-CVE-2025-38735DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38735
Published 05-09-2025Last modified 15-10-2026

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-38735 is a high (CVSS 7.8) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in debian debian_linux. EPSS estimates a 0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6.3% of scored vulnerabilities.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 7.8, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
7.8/10
010
High · v3.1 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
0.17%
0%100%
Low · 0.00 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 37 · Related 32
DLA-4328-1DSA-6008-1DSA-6009-1MGASA-2025-0234MGASA-2025-0235OPENSUSE-SU-2025:20081-1

Timeline

  1. 05-09-2025
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 15-10-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

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 metrics

4 scores · 4 sources · 1 version

EPSS trend

Probability

0.17%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

6%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

No change 0.00 pp

From 0.17% 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.

Ubuntu125 products
  • linux< 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws< 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
Debian2 products
  • linux< 6.1.153-1 | < 6.12.48-1 | < 6.16.5-1
  • debian_linuxEOL11.0
Linux2 products
  • linux≥ 974365e518617c9ce917f61aacbba07e4bedcca0, < 48a4e89d50e8ea52e800bc7865970b92fcf4647c | ≥ 974365e518617c9ce917f61aacbba07e4bedcca0, < ba51d73408edf815cbaeab148625576c2dd90192 | ≥ 974365e518617c9ce917f61aacbba07e4bedcca0, < a7efffeecb881b4649fdc30de020ef910f35d646 | ≥ 974365e518617c9ce917f61aacbba07e4bedcca0, < 9d8a41e9a4ff83ff666de811e7f012167cdc00e9 | ≥ 974365e518617c9ce917f61aacbba07e4bedcca0, < 75a9a46d67f46d608205888f9b34e315c1786345 | 5.17
  • linux_kernel≥ 5.17, < 6.1.149 | ≥ 6.2, < 6.6.103 | ≥ 6.7, < 6.12.44 | ≥ 6.13, < 6.16.4 | 6.17:rc1 | 6.17:rc2

3 vendors · 129 products

References

27 links
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