CVE-2025-37905: Linux kernel · firmware: arm_scmi: Balance device refcount when destroying devices
Source GCVE Database
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.
Data as of 13 Nov 2026, 19:33 UTC
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 20 May 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 13 Nov 2026.
What to do
AI-suggested
No vendor advisory or patch links are provided in the data. The issue can be mitigated by applying the fix that balances the device reference count by issuing put_device() calls on devices found via device_find_child(). Until a patch is applied, avoid frequent loading and unloading of SCMI drivers to reduce memory leak impact.
Description
CVE-2025-37905 is a medium severity vulnerability in the Linux kernel's arm_scmi firmware driver. It involves an unbalanced device reference count when destroying SCMI devices due to the use of device_find_child(), which implicitly increments the device reference count but does not balance it with a corresponding put_device(). This leads to device release methods not being called and memory not being freed properly, causing a memory leak detected by kmemleak.
References
- nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-37905 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/2fbf6c9695ad9f05e7e5c166bf43fac7cb3276b3 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a8a3547d5c4960da053df49c75bf623827a25da (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/91ff1e9652fb9beb0174267d6bb38243dff211bb (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/969d8beaa2e374387bf9aa5602ef84fc50bb48d8 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ca67840c0ddf3f39407339624cef824a4f27599 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/ff4273d47da81b95ed9396110bcbd1b7b7470fe8 (opens in a new tab)
- lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/08/msg00010.html (opens in a new tab)