VulnerabilityPublished 16 Aug 2025Updated 8 Oct 2026

CVE-2025-38506: Linux kernel · KVM: Allow CPU to reschedule while setting per-page memory attributes

Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium · fixed in 6.8.0-1046.49~22.04.1 : update Linux kernel when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 1% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 6.8.0-1046.49~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1051.57~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1046.53~22.04.1 +32

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 16 Aug 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: 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 26 Oct 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.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, 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.

Patches and advisories

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure-fde`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-fde?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.17.0-1003.3 – 6.17.0-1017.17 10 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-100.100	Fixed in 6.8.0-100.100
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-aws`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1046.49	Fixed in 6.8.0-1046.49
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-aws-6.14`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws-6.14?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.14.0-1017.17~24.04.1	Fixed in 6.14.0-1017.17~24.04.1
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-azure`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected <6.8.0-1046.52	Fixed in 6.8.0-1046.52
Ubuntu 24.04 LTSlinux-azure-6.11`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-6.11?arch=source&distro=noble`Other threats	Affected 6.11.0-1008.8~24.04.1 – 6.11.0-1018.18~24.04.1 7 affected builds	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: Allow CPU to reschedule while setting per-page memory attributes When running an SEV-SNP guest with a sufficiently large amount of memory (1TB+), the host can experience CPU soft lockups when running an operation in kvm_vm_set_mem_attributes() to set memory attributes on the whole range of guest memory. watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#8 stuck for 26s! [qemu-kvm:6372] CPU: 8 UID: 0 PID: 6372 Comm: qemu-kvm Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.15.0-rc7.20250520.el9uek.rc1.x86_64 #1 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: Oracle Corporation ORACLE SERVER E4-2c/Asm,MB Tray,2U,E4-2c, BIOS 78016600 11/13/2024 RIP: 0010:xas_create+0x78/0x1f0 Code: 00 00 00 41 80 fc 01 0f 84 82 00 00 00 ba 06 00 00 00 bd 06 00 00 00 49 8b 45 08 4d 8d 65 08 41 39 d6 73 20 83 ed 06 48 85 c0 <74> 67 48 89 c2 83 e2 03 48 83 fa 02 75 0c 48 3d 00 10 00 00 0f 87 RSP: 0018:ffffad890a34b940 EFLAGS: 00000286 RAX: ffff96f30b261daa RBX: ffffad890a34b9c8 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 000000000000001e RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: 0000000000000018 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffad890a356868 R13: ffffad890a356860 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffffad890a356868 FS: 00007f5578a2a400(0000) GS:ffff97ed317e1000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f015c70fb18 CR3: 00000001109fd006 CR4: 0000000000f70ef0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> xas_store+0x58/0x630 __xa_store+0xa5/0x130 xa_store+0x2c/0x50 kvm_vm_set_mem_attributes+0x343/0x710 [kvm] kvm_vm_ioctl+0x796/0xab0 [kvm] __x64_sys_ioctl+0xa3/0xd0 do_syscall_64+0x8c/0x7a0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7f5578d031bb Code: ff ff ff 85 c0 79 9b 49 c7 c4 ff ff ff ff 5b 5d 4c 89 e0 41 5c c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 f3 0f 1e fa b8 10 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 8b 0d 2d 4c 0f 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007ffe0a742b88 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 000000004020aed2 RCX: 00007f5578d031bb RDX: 00007ffe0a742c80 RSI: 000000004020aed2 RDI: 000000000000000b RBP: 0000010000000000 R08: 0000010000000000 R09: 0000017680000000 R10: 0000000000000080 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00005575e5f95120 R13: 00007ffe0a742c80 R14: 0000000000000008 R15: 00005575e5f961e0 While looping through the range of memory setting the attributes, call cond_resched() to give the scheduler a chance to run a higher priority task on the runqueue if necessary and avoid staying in kernel mode long enough to trigger the lockup.

References

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