# CVE-2025-22009: regulator: dummy: force synchronous probing

> A race condition in the Linux kernel regulator driver can cause a NULL pointer dereference at boot, leading to a system crash.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 8 Apr 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-59859, BELL-CVE-2025-22009, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-22009, GHSA-g852-mvxx-736r, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-22009, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-22009

## What is CVE-2025-22009?

CVE-2025-22009 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 8 Apr 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

regulator: dummy: force synchronous probing

Sometimes I get a NULL pointer dereference at boot time in kobject_get()
with the following call stack:

anatop_regulator_probe()
 devm_regulator_register()
  regulator_register()
   regulator_resolve_supply()
    kobject_get()

By placing some extra BUG_ON() statements I could verify that this is
raised because probing of the 'dummy' regulator driver is not completed
('dummy_regulator_rdev' is still NULL).

In the JTAG debugger I can see that dummy_regulator_probe() and
anatop_regulator_probe() can be run by different kernel threads
(kworker/u4:*).  I haven't further investigated whether this can be
changed or if there are other possibilities to force synchronization
between these two probe routines.  On the other hand I don't expect much
boot time penalty by probing the 'dummy' regulator synchronously.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-22009?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-22009?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-22009 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-22009 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-22009 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-22009 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 8 Apr 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-22009 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-22009/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-22009/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-22009
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22009
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-22009

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-22009/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.