VulnerabilityPublished 4 Sep 2025Updated 5 Nov 2026

CVE-2025-38681: Linux kernel · mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd()

Affects Linux kernelSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · fixed in ff40839e018b82c4d756d035f34a63aa2d93be83 : update Linux kernel when convenient.

Data as of 5 Nov 2026, 21:34 UTC

Severity

Unrated

Rated by Threat Radar · No CVSS score from NVD or the CNA

Thin evidence

One scorer or none

Exploitation: No evidence of active exploitation and no public proof of concept
Automatable: Attackers cannot reliably automate steps 1–4 of the kill chain
Technical impact: Limited control over the software or limited information exposure

CISA SSVC assessment, 2026-11-05.

Patch

Available – fixed in ff40839e018b82c4d756d035f34a63aa2d93be83, ca8c414499f2e5337a95a76be0d21b728ee31c6b, ac25ec5fa2bf6e606dc7954488e4dded272fa9cd +5

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 4 Sep 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 5 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade to a fixed release listed under Affected software.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < ff40839e018b82c4d756d035f34a63aa2d93be83	Fixed in ff40839e018b82c4d756d035f34a63aa2d93be83
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < ca8c414499f2e5337a95a76be0d21b728ee31c6b	Fixed in ca8c414499f2e5337a95a76be0d21b728ee31c6b
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < ac25ec5fa2bf6e606dc7954488e4dded272fa9cd	Fixed in ac25ec5fa2bf6e606dc7954488e4dded272fa9cd
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < 59305202c67fea50378dcad0cc199dbc13a0e99a	Fixed in 59305202c67fea50378dcad0cc199dbc13a0e99a
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < 67995d4244694928ce701928e530b5b4adeb17b4	Fixed in 67995d4244694928ce701928e530b5b4adeb17b4
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ bbd6ec605c0fc286c3f8ce60b4ed44635361d58b, < 1636b5e9c3543b87d673e32a47e7c18698882425	Fixed in 1636b5e9c3543b87d673e32a47e7c18698882425

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd() Memory hot remove unmaps and tears down various kernel page table regions as required. The ptdump code can race with concurrent modifications of the kernel page tables. When leaf entries are modified concurrently, the dump code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but this is otherwise not harmful. But when intermediate levels of kernel page table are freed, the dump code will continue to use memory that has been freed and potentially reallocated for another purpose. In such cases, the ptdump code may dereference bogus addresses, leading to a number of potential problems. To avoid the above mentioned race condition, platforms such as arm64, riscv and s390 take memory hotplug lock, while dumping kernel page table via the sysfs interface /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables. Similar race condition exists while checking for pages that might have been marked W+X via /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables/check_wx_pages which in turn calls ptdump_check_wx(). Instead of solving this race condition again, let's just move the memory hotplug lock inside generic ptdump_check_wx() which will benefit both the scenarios. Drop get_online_mems() and put_online_mems() combination from all existing platform ptdump code paths.

References

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