CVE-2025-38296 ACPI: platform_profile: Avoid initializing on non-ACPI platforms
A null pointer dereference in the Linux kernel ACPI platform profile driver causes a warning and potential crash on non-ACPI platforms.
- 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-2025-38296?
CVE-2025-38296 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 10 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:
ACPI: platform_profile: Avoid initializing on non-ACPI platforms
The platform profile driver is loaded even on platforms that do not have ACPI enabled. The initialization of the sysfs entries was recently moved from platform_profile_register() to the module init call, and those entries need acpi_kobj to be initialized which is not the case when ACPI is disabled.
This results in the following warning:
WARNING: CPU: 5 PID: 1 at fs/sysfs/group.c:131 internal_create_group+0xa22/0xdd8 Modules linked in: CPU: 5 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 6.15.0-rc7-dirty #6 PREEMPT Tainted: [W]=WARN Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT) epc : internal_create_group+0xa22/0xdd8 ra : internal_create_group+0xa22/0xdd8
Call Trace:
internal_create_group+0xa22/0xdd8 sysfs_create_group+0x22/0x2e platform_profile_init+0x74/0xb2 do_one_initcall+0x198/0xa9e kernel_init_freeable+0x6d8/0x780 kernel_init+0x28/0x24c ret_from_fork+0xe/0x18
Fix this by checking if ACPI is enabled before trying to create sysfs entries.
[ rjw: Subject and changelog edits ]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38296?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38296?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38296 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38296 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38296, GHSA-fpw2-q5q5-h668, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38296.