# CVE-2025-38009: wifi: mt76: disable napi on driver removal

> A missing NAPI disable call in the mt76 WiFi driver causes a kernel warning and potential instability during driver removal, requiring a patch.

- **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:** 18 Jun 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38009, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38009, GHSA-6r65-9v24-3q44, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38009, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38009, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38009, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38009

## What is CVE-2025-38009?

CVE-2025-38009 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 18 Jun 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:

wifi: mt76: disable napi on driver removal

A warning on driver removal started occurring after commit 9dd05df8403b
("net: warn if NAPI instance wasn't shut down"). Disable tx napi before
deleting it in mt76_dma_cleanup().

 WARNING: CPU: 4 PID: 18828 at net/core/dev.c:7288 __netif_napi_del_locked+0xf0/0x100
 CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 18828 Comm: modprobe Not tainted 6.15.0-rc4 #4 PREEMPT(lazy)
 Hardware name: ASUS System Product Name/PRIME X670E-PRO WIFI, BIOS 3035 09/05/2024
 RIP: 0010:__netif_napi_del_locked+0xf0/0x100
 Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 mt76_dma_cleanup+0x54/0x2f0 [mt76]
 mt7921_pci_remove+0xd5/0x190 [mt7921e]
 pci_device_remove+0x47/0xc0
 device_release_driver_internal+0x19e/0x200
 driver_detach+0x48/0x90
 bus_remove_driver+0x6d/0xf0
 pci_unregister_driver+0x2e/0xb0
 __do_sys_delete_module.isra.0+0x197/0x2e0
 do_syscall_64+0x7b/0x160
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

Tested with mt7921e but the same pattern can be actually applied to other
mt76 drivers calling mt76_dma_cleanup() during removal. Tx napi is enabled
in their *_dma_init() functions and only toggled off and on again inside
their suspend/resume/reset paths. So it should be okay to disable tx
napi in such a generic way.

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38009?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38009?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38009 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38009 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

- [CVE-2015-3306](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3306/): ProFTPD Improper Access Control (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-49113](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-49113/): RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data (critical 9.9, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-24061](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-24061/): GNU InetUtils Argument Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-39682](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39682/): Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-9680](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-9680/): Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-38009 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38009 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 18 Jun 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-2025-38009 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Debian Debian Linux. 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-2025-38009/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38009/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38009
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38009
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38009

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38009/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.