Linux KernelOperating system · Linux
CVE-2025-38398
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: spi: spi-qpic-snand: reallocate BAM transactions Using the mtd_nandbiterrs module for testing the driver occasionally results in weird things like below. 1. swiotlb mapping fails with the following message: [ 85.926216] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: swiotlb buffer is full (sz: 4294967294 bytes), total 512 (slots), used 0 (slots) [ 85.932937] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: failure in mapping desc [ 87.999314] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: failure to write raw page [ 87.999352] mtd_nandbiterrs: error: write_oob failed (-110) Rebooting the board after this causes a panic due to a NULL pointer dereference. 2. If the swiotlb mapping does not fail, rebooting the board may result in a different panic due to a bad spinlock magic: [ 256.104459] BUG: spinlock bad magic on CPU#3, procd/2241 [ 256.104488] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffffffff0000049b ... Investigating the issue revealed that these symptoms are results of memory corruption which is caused by out of bounds access within the driver. The driver uses a dynamically allocated structure for BAM transactions, which structure must have enough space for all possible variations of different flash operations initiated by the driver. The required space heavily depends on the actual number of 'codewords' which is calculated from the pagesize of the actual NAND chip. Although the qcom_nandc_alloc() function allocates memory for the BAM transactions during probe, but since the actual number of 'codewords' is not yet know the allocation is done for one 'codeword' only. Because of this, whenever the driver does a flash operation, and the number of the required transactions exceeds the size of the allocated arrays the driver accesses memory out of the allocated range. To avoid this, change the code to free the initially allocated BAM transactions memory, and allocate a new one once the actual number of 'codewords' required for a given NAND chip is known.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisThe code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.
General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
>= 6.15, < 6.15.6= 6.16CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped6.15.6
Linux Kernel 6.15.6 or later, or any stable release > 6.16
- Upgrade Linux Kernel to version 6.15.6 or later, OR upgrade to any stable version greater than 6.16
- Verify the kernel version after upgrade using 'uname -r' or 'cat /proc/version'
- Reboot the system to load the new kernel
- If using a distribution kernel (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL), ensure the distribution has backported the fix or use a distribution-supplied kernel update
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-38398 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-38398 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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