CVE-2025-38094 net: cadence: macb: Fix a possible deadlock in macb_halt_tx.
A deadlock in the Cadence MACB network driver can cause the system to hang indefinitely, requiring a kernel patch to resolve.
- 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
What is CVE-2025-38094?
CVE-2025-38094 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 3 Jul 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:
net: cadence: macb: Fix a possible deadlock in macb_halt_tx.
There is a situation where after THALT is set high, TGO stays high as well. Because jiffies are never updated, as we are in a context with interrupts disabled, we never exit that loop and have a deadlock.
That deadlock was noticed on a sama5d4 device that stayed locked for days.
Use retries instead of jiffies so that the timeout really works and we do not have a deadlock anymore.
Weakness: CWE-667
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38094?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38094?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-38094 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38094 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38094, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38094, GHSA-fv7f-r8h4-5hh2, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38094, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38094, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38094 and 1 more.