CVEvulnerability
CVE-2025-38488
7.8 HIGH
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2025-07-28
- Last modified
- 2026-07-30
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67)
- 9.8 CRITICAL — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 7.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-416
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto
The CVE-2024-50047 fix removed asynchronous crypto handling from
crypt_message(), assuming all crypto operations are synchronous.
However, when hardware crypto accelerators are used, this can cause
use-after-free crashes:
crypt_message()
// Allocate the creq buffer containing the req
creq = smb2_get_aead_req(..., &req);
// Async encryption returns -EINPROGRESS immediately
rc = enc ? crypto_aead_encrypt(req) : crypto_aead_decrypt(req);
// Free creq while async operation is still in progress
kvfree_sensitive(creq, ...);
Hardware crypto modules often implement async AEAD operations for
performance. When crypto_aead_encrypt/decrypt() returns -EINPROGRESS,
the operation completes asynchronously. Without crypto_wait_req(),
the function immediately frees the request buffer, leading to crashes
when the driver later accesses the freed memory.
This results in a use-after-free condition when the hardware crypto
driver later accesses the freed request structure, leading to kernel
crashes with NULL pointer dereferences.
The issue occurs because crypto_alloc_aead() with mask=0 doesn't
guarantee synchronous operation. Even without CRYPTO_ALG_ASYNC in
the mask, async implementations can be selected.
Fix by restoring the async crypto handling:
- DECLARE_CRYPTO_WAIT(wait) for completion tracking
- aead_request_set_callback() for async completion notification
- crypto_wait_req() to wait for operation completion
This ensures the request buffer isn't freed until the crypto operation
completes, whether synchronous or asynchronous, while preserving the
CVE-2024-50047 fix.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.10.237 < 5.10.241)
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.15.181 < 5.15.190)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.1.128 < 6.1.147)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.6.57 < 6.6.100)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.11.4 < 6.12.40)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.13 < 6.15.8)
• linux linux kernel 6.16
• debian debian linux 11.0
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-416 Use After Free weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/15a0a5de49507062bc3be4014a403d8cea5533de Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2a76bc2b24ed889a689fb1c9015307bf16aafb5b Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5d047b12f86cc3b9fde1171c02d9bccf4dba0632 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6550b2bef095d0dd2d2c8390d2ea4c3837028833 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8ac90f6824fc44d2e55a82503ddfc95defb19ae0 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a1d3e8d40f151c2d5a5f40c410e6e433f62f438 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b220bed63330c0e1733dc06ea8e75d5b9962b6b6 Patch
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00007.html Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html Third Party Advisory