Linux Kernel up to 6.12.33/6.15.2 ring-buffer ring_buffer.c memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.33/6.15.2. This affects an unknown function of the file kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c of the component ring-buffer. Such manipulation leads to memory leak. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2025-38267. There is no exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.33/6.15.2. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality of the file kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c of the component ring-buffer. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. Impacted is availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ring-buffer: Do not trigger WARN_ON() due to a commit_overrun When reading a memory mapped buffer the reader page is just swapped out with the last page written in the write buffer. If the reader page is the same as the commit buffer (the buffer that is currently being written to) it was assumed that it should never have missed events. If it does, it triggers a WARN_ON_ONCE(). But there just happens to be one scenario where this can legitimately happen. That is on a commit_overrun. A commit overrun is when an interrupt preempts an event being written to the buffer and then the interrupt adds so many new events that it fills and wraps the buffer back to the commit. Any new events would then be dropped and be reported as "missed_events". In this case, the next page to read is the commit buffer and after the swap of the reader page, the reader page will be the commit buffer, but this time there will be missed events and this triggers the following warning: ------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 1127 at kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c:7357 ring_buffer_map_get_reader+0x49a/0x780 Modules linked in: kvm_intel kvm irqbypass CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 1127 Comm: trace-cmd Not tainted 6.15.0-rc7-test-00004-g478bc2824b45-dirty #564 PREEMPT Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:ring_buffer_map_get_reader+0x49a/0x780 Code: 00 00 00 48 89 fe 48 c1 ee 03 80 3c 2e 00 0f 85 ec 01 00 00 4d 3b a6 a8 00 00 00 0f 85 8a fd ff ff 48 85 c0 0f 84 55 fe ff ff <0f> 0b e9 4e fe ff ff be 08 00 00 00 4c 89 54 24 58 48 89 54 24 50 RSP: 0018:ffff888121787dc0 EFLAGS: 00010002 RAX: 00000000000006a2 RBX: ffff888100062800 RCX: ffffffff8190cb49 RDX: ffff888126934c00 RSI: 1ffff11020200a15 RDI: ffff8881010050a8 RBP: dffffc0000000000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffed1024d26982 R10: ffff888126934c17 R11: ffff8881010050a8 R12: ffff888126934c00 R13: ffff8881010050b8 R14: ffff888101005000 R15: ffff888126930008 FS: 00007f95c8cd7540(0000) GS:ffff8882b576e000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f95c8de4dc0 CR3: 0000000128452002 CR4: 0000000000172ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> ? __pfx_ring_buffer_map_get_reader+0x10/0x10 tracing_buffers_ioctl+0x283/0x370 __x64_sys_ioctl+0x134/0x190 do_syscall_64+0x79/0x1c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7f95c8de48db Code: 00 48 89 44 24 18 31 c0 48 8d 44 24 60 c7 04 24 10 00 00 00 48 89 44 24 08 48 8d 44 24 20 48 89 44 24 10 b8 10 00 00 00 0f 05 <89> c2 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 1c 48 8b 44 24 18 64 48 2b 04 25 28 00 00 RSP: 002b:00007ffe037ba110 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007ffe037bb2b0 RCX: 00007f95c8de48db RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000005220 RDI: 0000000000000006 RBP: 00007ffe037ba180 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 00007ffe037bb6f8 R14: 00007f95c9065000 R15: 00005575c7492c90 </TASK> irq event stamp: 5080 hardirqs last enabled at (5079): [<ffffffff83e0adb0>] _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x50/0x70 hardirqs last disabled at (5080): [<ffffffff83e0aa83>] _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x63/0x70 softirqs last enabled at (4182): [<ffffffff81516122>] handle_softirqs+0x552/0x710 softirqs last disabled at (4159): [<ffffffff815163f7>] __irq_exit_rcu+0x107/0x210 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- The above was triggered by running on a kernel with both lockdep and KASAN as well as kmemleak enabled and executing the following command: # perf record -o perf-test.dat -a -- trace-cmd record --nosplice -e all -p function hackbench 50 With perf interjecting a lot of interrupts and trace-cmd enabling all events as well as function tracing, with lockdep, KASAN and kmemleak enabled, it could cause an interrupt preempting an event being written to add enough event ---truncated---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2025-38267 since 04/16/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 246948 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-38267), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.34, 6.15.3 or 6.16-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch b8df8cb8f7eef52baa9ac5bf36a405ca67945a91/e018053632bad8ee0752242c7d2cffb0bbf45404/4fc78a7c9ca994e1da5d3940704d4e8f0ea8c5e4 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (246948) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-1522). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• IBM QRadar SIEM
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Dell Avamar
• Dell NetWorker

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8
• 6.12.9
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.12.13
• 6.12.14
• 6.12.15
• 6.12.16
• 6.12.17
• 6.12.18
• 6.12.19
• 6.12.20
• 6.12.21
• 6.12.22
• 6.12.23
• 6.12.24
• 6.12.25
• 6.12.26
• 6.12.27
• 6.12.28
• 6.12.29
• 6.12.30
• 6.12.31
• 6.12.32
• 6.12.33
• 6.15.0
• 6.15.1
• 6.15.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

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