# CVE-2025-38427: video: screen_info: Relocate framebuffers behind PCI bridges

> A Linux kernel video driver flaw causes invalid I/O memory access when framebuffers are behind PCI bridges, potentially leading to system crashes.

- **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:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38427, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38427, GHSA-833c-qfxr-5pp5, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38427, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38427

## What is CVE-2025-38427?

CVE-2025-38427 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:

video: screen_info: Relocate framebuffers behind PCI bridges

Apply PCI host-bridge window offsets to screen_info framebuffers. Fixes
invalid access to I/O memory.

Resources behind a PCI host bridge can be relocated by a certain offset
in the kernel's CPU address range used for I/O. The framebuffer memory
range stored in screen_info refers to the CPU addresses as seen during
boot (where the offset is 0). During boot up, firmware may assign a
different memory offset to the PCI host bridge and thereby relocating
the framebuffer address of the PCI graphics device as seen by the kernel.
The information in screen_info must be updated as well.

The helper pcibios_bus_to_resource() performs the relocation of the
screen_info's framebuffer resource (given in PCI bus addresses). The
result matches the I/O-memory resource of the PCI graphics device (given
in CPU addresses). As before, we store away the information necessary to
later update the information in screen_info itself.

Commit 78aa89d1dfba ("firmware/sysfb: Update screen_info for relocated
EFI framebuffers") added the code for updating screen_info. It is based
on similar functionality that pre-existed in efifb. Efifb uses a pointer
to the PCI resource, while the newer code does a memcpy of the region.
Hence efifb sees any updates to the PCI resource and avoids the issue.

v3:
- Only use struct pci_bus_region for PCI bus addresses (Bjorn)
- Clarify address semantics in commit messages and comments (Bjorn)
v2:
- Fixed tags (Takashi, Ivan)
- Updated information on efifb

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38427?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38427?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38427 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38427 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-2025-38427 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38427 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-2025-38427 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-2025-38427/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38427/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38427
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38427
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38427

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38427/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.