# CVE-2025-38356: drm/xe/guc: Explicitly exit CT safe mode on unwind

> A race condition in the Linux kernel's Xe GPU driver during probe failure can trigger a warning and potential instability by destroying a workqueue with pending tasks.

- **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:** 25 Jul 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38356, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38356, GHSA-w3wq-ghx5-h8rc, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38356

## What is CVE-2025-38356?

CVE-2025-38356 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 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:

drm/xe/guc: Explicitly exit CT safe mode on unwind

During driver probe we might be briefly using CT safe mode, which
is based on a delayed work, but usually we are able to stop this
once we have IRQ fully operational.  However, if we abort the probe
quite early then during unwind we might try to destroy the workqueue
while there is still a pending delayed work that attempts to restart
itself which triggers a WARN.

This was recently observed during unsuccessful VF initialization:

 [ ] xe 0000:00:02.1: probe with driver xe failed with error -62
 [ ] ------------[ cut here ]------------
 [ ] workqueue: cannot queue safe_mode_worker_func [xe] on wq xe-g2h-wq
 [ ] WARNING: CPU: 9 PID: 0 at kernel/workqueue.c:2257 __queue_work+0x287/0x710
 [ ] RIP: 0010:__queue_work+0x287/0x710
 [ ] Call Trace:
 [ ]  delayed_work_timer_fn+0x19/0x30
 [ ]  call_timer_fn+0xa1/0x2a0

Exit the CT safe mode on unwind to avoid that warning.

(cherry picked from commit 2ddbb73ec20b98e70a5200cb85deade22ccea2ec)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38356?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38356?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38356 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38356 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-2025-38356 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38356 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 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-2025-38356 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-2025-38356/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38356/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38356
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38356
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38356

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38356/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.