CVE-2025-38111 | net/mdiobus: Fix potential out-of-bounds read/write access

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/mdiobus: Fix potential out-of-bounds read/write access When using publicly available tools like 'mdio-tools' to read/write data from/to network interface and its PHY via mdiobus, there is no verification of parameters passed to the ioctl and it accepts any mdio address. Currently there is support for 32 addresses in kernel via PHY_MAX_ADDR define, but it is possible to pass higher value than that via ioctl. While read/write operation should generally fail in this case, mdiobus provides stats array, where wrong address may allow out-of-bounds read/write. Fix that by adding address verification before read/write operation. While this excludes this access from any statistics, it improves security of read/write operation.

Published: 2025-07-03 Last update: 2026-05-12 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-38111 is rated Low Risk (36.8/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.08%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-38111

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-04-29 0.02% 0.08% +0.07%
2 2025-12-17 0.05% 0.02% -0.04%
3 2025-10-17 0.05%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-38111

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 5.2 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-38111

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2025-38111

GHSA-vhm6-v69m-pxx6 · Severity: high — In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/mdiobus: Fix potential...

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-38111

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-38111 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (linux, linux-6.1), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-38111
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-38111
suse high https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-38111/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-38111 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, released 169, ignored 164, not-affected 67, needed 3, needs-triage 2, pending 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-38111

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-38111

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.6, < 5.10.239 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.186 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.142 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.94 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.34 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.15.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.16 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.16:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-38111

URL Tags
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/014ad9210373d2104f6ef10e6bb999a7a0a4c50e Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/049af7ac45a6b407748ee0995278fd861e36df8f Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0e629694126ca388916f059453a1c36adde219c4 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/19c5875e26c4ed5686d82a7d8f7051385461b9eb Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/73d478234a619f3476028cb02dee699c30ae8262 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b02d9d2732483e670bc34cb233d28e1d43b15da4 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bab6bca0834cbb5be2a7cfe59ec6ad016ec72608 Patch
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00007.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-082556.html
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