CVE-2025-38344 ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's ACPICA component can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service during ACPI initialization failures.
- 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-2025-38344?
CVE-2025-38344 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, 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:
ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks
ACPICA commit 8829e70e1360c81e7a5a901b5d4f48330e021ea5
I'm Seunghun Han, and I work for National Security Research Institute of South Korea.
I have been doing a research on ACPI and found an ACPI cache leak in ACPI early abort cases.
Boot log of ACPI cache leak is as follows: [ 0.352414] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device) [ 0.356028] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter [ 0.356799] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281) [ 0.360215] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-State: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.360648] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #10 [ 0.361273] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.361873] Call Trace: [ 0.362243] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.362591] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.362944] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.363296] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.363646] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b [ 0.364000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.364000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f [ 0.364000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80 [ 0.364000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f [ 0.364000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.364000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0 [ 0.364000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a [ 0.364000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0 [ 0.364000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100 [ 0.364000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30
I analyzed this memory leak in detail. I found that “Acpi-State” cache and “Acpi-Parse” cache were merged because the size of cache objects was same slab cache size.
I finally found “Acpi-Parse” cache and “Acpi-parse_ext” cache were leaked using SLAB_NEVER_MERGE flag in kmem_cache_create() function.
Real ACPI cache leak point is as follows: [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device) [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device) [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions) [ 0.361043] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device) [ 0.364016] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter [ 0.365061] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281) [ 0.368174] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-Parse: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.369332] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8 [ 0.371256] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.372000] Call Trace: [ 0.372000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.372000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x56/0x7b [ 0.372000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f [ 0.372000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80 [ 0.372000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f [ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.372000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0 [ 0.372000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a [ 0.372000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0 [ 0.372000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100 [ 0.372000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30 [ 0.388039] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-parse_ext: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.389063] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8 [ 0.390557] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.392000] Call Trace: [ 0.392000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.392000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b [ 0.392000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x3 ---truncated---
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38344?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38344?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2025-38344 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38344 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as AZL-64968, BELL-CVE-2025-38344, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38344, GHSA-q25g-gf9c-x8q7, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38344, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38344 and 3 more.