# CVE-2025-38031: padata: do not leak refcount in reorder_work

> A reference count leak in the Linux kernel padata subsystem can lead to memory exhaustion and denial of service.

- **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:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38031, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38031, GHSA-743c-jrqg-qcwf, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38031, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38031, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-38031, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38031, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38031

## What is CVE-2025-38031?

CVE-2025-38031 is a medium-severity memory corruption 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:

padata: do not leak refcount in reorder_work

A recent patch that addressed a UAF introduced a reference count leak:
the parallel_data refcount is incremented unconditionally, regardless
of the return value of queue_work(). If the work item is already queued,
the incremented refcount is never decremented.

Fix this by checking the return value of queue_work() and decrementing
the refcount when necessary.

Resolves:

Unreferenced object 0xffff9d9f421e3d80 (size 192):
  comm "cryptomgr_probe", pid 157, jiffies 4294694003
  hex dump (first 32 bytes):
    80 8b cf 41 9f 9d ff ff b8 97 e0 89 ff ff ff ff  ...A............
    d0 97 e0 89 ff ff ff ff 19 00 00 00 1f 88 23 00  ..............#.
  backtrace (crc 838fb36):
    __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x284/0x320
    padata_alloc_pd+0x20/0x1e0
    padata_alloc_shell+0x3b/0xa0
    0xffffffffc040a54d
    cryptomgr_probe+0x43/0xc0
    kthread+0xf6/0x1f0
    ret_from_fork+0x2f/0x50
    ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38031?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38031?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38031 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38031 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-2025-38031 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38031 is a medium-severity memory corruption 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-2025-38031 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-2025-38031/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38031/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38031
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38031
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38031

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38031/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.