# CVE-2025-38345: ACPICA: fix acpi operand cache leak in dswstate.c

> A memory leak in the Linux kernel's ACPI subsystem can cause a kernel warning and potential instability when processing malicious ACPI tables.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** 10 Jul 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-64922, BELL-CVE-2025-38345, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38345, GHSA-jqq8-h46c-rj4r, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38345, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-38345, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38345, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38345

## What is CVE-2025-38345?

CVE-2025-38345 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 operand cache leak in dswstate.c

ACPICA commit 987a3b5cf7175916e2a4b6ea5b8e70f830dfe732

I found an ACPI cache leak in ACPI early termination and boot continuing case.

When early termination occurs due to malicious ACPI table, Linux kernel
terminates ACPI function and continues to boot process. While kernel terminates
ACPI function, kmem_cache_destroy() reports Acpi-Operand cache leak.

Boot log of ACPI operand cache leak is as follows:
>[    0.585957] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device)
>[    0.587218] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device)
>[    0.588530] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions)
>[    0.589790] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device)
>[    0.591534] ACPI Error: Illegal I/O port address/length above 64K: C806E00000004002/0x2 (20170303/hwvalid-155)
>[    0.594351] ACPI Exception: AE_LIMIT, Unable to initialize fixed events (20170303/evevent-88)
>[    0.597858] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter
>[    0.599162] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281)
>[    0.601836] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-Operand: Slab cache still has objects
>[    0.603556] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 4.12.0-rc5 #26
>[    0.605159] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006
>[    0.609177] Call Trace:
>[    0.610063]  ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81
>[    0.611118]  ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0
>[    0.612632]  ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27
>[    0.613906]  ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10
>[    0.617986]  ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x3f/0x7b
>[    0.619293]  ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14
>[    0.620394]  ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f
>[    0.621616]  ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80
>[    0.623412]  ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f
>[    0.624585]  ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27
>[    0.625861]  ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0
>[    0.627513]  ? kernel_init_freeable+0x19e/0x21f
>[    0.628972]  ? rest_init+0x80/0x80
>[    0.630043]  ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100
>[    0.631084]  ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30
>[    0.633343] vgaarb: loaded
>[    0.635036] EDAC MC: Ver: 3.0.0
>[    0.638601] PCI: Probing PCI hardware
>[    0.639833] PCI host bridge to bus 0000:00
>[    0.641031] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [io  0x0000-0xffff]
> ... Continue to boot and log is omitted ...

I analyzed this memory leak in detail and found acpi_ds_obj_stack_pop_and_
delete() function miscalculated the top of the stack. acpi_ds_obj_stack_push()
function uses walk_state->operand_index for start position of the top, but
acpi_ds_obj_stack_pop_and_delete() function considers index 0 for it.
Therefore, this causes acpi operand memory leak.

This cache leak causes a security threat because an old kernel (<= 4.9) shows
memory locations of kernel functions in stack dump. Some malicious users
could use this information to neutralize kernel ASLR.

I made a patch to fix ACPI operand cache leak.

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38345?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38345?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38345 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38345 in the wild and no public exploit code.

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## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-38345 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38345 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38345 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Debian Debian Linux. 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-2025-38345/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38345/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38345
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38345
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38345

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38345/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.
