CVE-2025-38235 HID: appletb-kbd: fix "appletb_backlight" backlight device reference counting

What is CVE-2025-38235?

CVE-2025-38235 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 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:

HID: appletb-kbd: fix "appletb_backlight" backlight device reference counting

During appletb_kbd_probe, probe attempts to get the backlight device by name. When this happens backlight_device_get_by_name looks for a device in the backlight class which has name "appletb_backlight" and upon finding a match it increments the reference count for the device and returns it to the caller. However this reference is never released leading to a reference leak.

Fix this by decrementing the backlight device reference count on removal via put_device and on probe failure.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38235?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-38235?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-38235 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38235 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38235, GHSA-xfhg-wvc5-5xpc, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38235.