CVE-2025-38438 ASoC: SOF: Intel: hda: Use devm_kstrdup() to avoid memleak.
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's Intel HDA audio driver can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service.
- 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-2025-38438?
CVE-2025-38438 is a medium-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:
ASoC: SOF: Intel: hda: Use devm_kstrdup() to avoid memleak.
sof_pdata->tplg_filename can have address allocated by kstrdup() and can be overwritten. Memory leak was detected with kmemleak:
unreferenced object 0xffff88812391ff60 (size 16): comm "kworker/4:1", pid 161, jiffies 4294802931 hex dump (first 16 bytes): 73 6f 66 2d 68 64 61 2d 67 65 6e 65 72 69 63 00 sof-hda-generic. backtrace (crc 4bf1675c): __kmalloc_node_track_caller_noprof+0x49c/0x6b0 kstrdup+0x46/0xc0 hda_machine_select.cold+0x1de/0x12cf [snd_sof_intel_hda_generic] sof_init_environment+0x16f/0xb50 [snd_sof] sof_probe_continue+0x45/0x7c0 [snd_sof] sof_probe_work+0x1e/0x40 [snd_sof] process_one_work+0x894/0x14b0 worker_thread+0x5e5/0xfb0 kthread+0x39d/0x760 ret_from_fork+0x31/0x70 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38438?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38438?
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-2025-38438 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38438 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38438, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38438, GHSA-rvg6-v4xx-qvv4, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38438, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38438, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-38438 and 2 more.