# CVE-2025-38398: spi: spi-qpic-snand: reallocate BAM transactions

> Out-of-bounds memory access in the Linux kernel QPIC SNAND driver can cause system crashes and denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38398, GHSA-pqf9-m843-ppvg, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38398

## What is CVE-2025-38398?

CVE-2025-38398 is a high-severity memory corruption 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:

spi: spi-qpic-snand: reallocate BAM transactions

Using the mtd_nandbiterrs module for testing the driver occasionally
results in weird things like below.

1. swiotlb mapping fails with the following message:

  [   85.926216] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: swiotlb buffer is full (sz: 4294967294 bytes), total 512 (slots), used 0 (slots)
  [   85.932937] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: failure in mapping desc
  [   87.999314] qcom_snand 79b0000.spi: failure to write raw page
  [   87.999352] mtd_nandbiterrs: error: write_oob failed (-110)

  Rebooting the board after this causes a panic due to a NULL pointer
  dereference.

2. If the swiotlb mapping does not fail, rebooting the board may result
   in a different panic due to a bad spinlock magic:

  [  256.104459] BUG: spinlock bad magic on CPU#3, procd/2241
  [  256.104488] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffffffff0000049b
  ...

Investigating the issue revealed that these symptoms are results of
memory corruption which is caused by out of bounds access within the
driver.

The driver uses a dynamically allocated structure for BAM transactions,
which structure must have enough space for all possible variations of
different flash operations initiated by the driver. The required space
heavily depends on the actual number of 'codewords' which is calculated
from the pagesize of the actual NAND chip.

Although the qcom_nandc_alloc() function allocates memory for the BAM
transactions during probe, but since the actual number of 'codewords'
is not yet know the allocation is done for one 'codeword' only.

Because of this, whenever the driver does a flash operation, and the
number of the required transactions exceeds the size of the allocated
arrays the driver accesses memory out of the allocated range.

To avoid this, change the code to free the initially allocated BAM
transactions memory, and allocate a new one once the actual number of
'codewords' required for a given NAND chip is known.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38398?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38398?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38398 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38398 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-2025-38398 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38398 is a high-severity memory corruption 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-2025-38398 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-2025-38398/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38398/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38398
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38398
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38398

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38398/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.