# CVE-2025-38207: mm: fix uprobe pte be overwritten when expanding vma

> A race condition in the Linux kernel memory management subsystem can lead to a bad RSS counter state and potential system crash when expanding VMA with uprobes.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N`)
- **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:** 4 Jul 2025
- **Updated:** 21 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38207, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38207, GHSA-r267-h4hp-p29f, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38207, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38207, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-38207, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-38207, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38207, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38207

## What is CVE-2025-38207?

CVE-2025-38207 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 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:

mm: fix uprobe pte be overwritten when expanding vma

Patch series "Fix uprobe pte be overwritten when expanding vma".

This patch (of 4):

We encountered a BUG alert triggered by Syzkaller as follows:
   BUG: Bad rss-counter state mm:00000000b4a60fca type:MM_ANONPAGES val:1

And we can reproduce it with the following steps:
1. register uprobe on file at zero offset
2. mmap the file at zero offset:
   addr1 = mmap(NULL, 2 * 4096, PROT_NONE, MAP_PRIVATE, fd, 0);
3. mremap part of vma1 to new vma2:
   addr2 = mremap(addr1, 4096, 2 * 4096, MREMAP_MAYMOVE);
4. mremap back to orig addr1:
   mremap(addr2, 4096, 4096, MREMAP_MAYMOVE | MREMAP_FIXED, addr1);

In step 3, the vma1 range [addr1, addr1 + 4096] will be remap to new vma2
with range [addr2, addr2 + 8192], and remap uprobe anon page from the vma1
to vma2, then unmap the vma1 range [addr1, addr1 + 4096].

In step 4, the vma2 range [addr2, addr2 + 4096] will be remap back to the
addr range [addr1, addr1 + 4096].  Since the addr range [addr1 + 4096,
addr1 + 8192] still maps the file, it will take vma_merge_new_range to
expand the range, and then do uprobe_mmap in vma_complete.  Since the
merged vma pgoff is also zero offset, it will install uprobe anon page to
the merged vma.  However, the upcomming move_page_tables step, which use
set_pte_at to remap the vma2 uprobe pte to the merged vma, will overwrite
the newly uprobe pte in the merged vma, and lead that pte to be orphan.

Since the uprobe pte will be remapped to the merged vma, we can remove the
unnecessary uprobe_mmap upon merged vma.

This problem was first found in linux-6.6.y and also exists in the
community syzkaller:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/000000000000ada39605a5e71711@google.com/T/

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38207?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38207?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38207 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38207 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-2025-38207 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38207 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Jul 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-2025-38207 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-2025-38207/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38207/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38207
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38207
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38207

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38207/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.