CVE-2025-38444 raid10: cleanup memleak at raid10_make_request
A memory leak in the Linux kernel RAID10 driver allows local attackers to exhaust system memory, causing 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-2025-38444?
CVE-2025-38444 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, 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:
raid10: cleanup memleak at raid10_make_request
If raid10_read_request or raid10_write_request registers a new request and the REQ_NOWAIT flag is set, the code does not free the malloc from the mempool.
unreferenced object 0xffff8884802c3200 (size 192): comm "fio", pid 9197, jiffies 4298078271 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 88 41 02 00 00 00 00 00 .........A...... 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace (crc c1a049a2): __kmalloc+0x2bb/0x450 mempool_alloc+0x11b/0x320 raid10_make_request+0x19e/0x650 [raid10] md_handle_request+0x3b3/0x9e0 __submit_bio+0x394/0x560 __submit_bio_noacct+0x145/0x530 submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x682/0x830 __blkdev_direct_IO_async+0x4dc/0x6b0 blkdev_read_iter+0x1e5/0x3b0 __io_read+0x230/0x1110 io_read+0x13/0x30 io_issue_sqe+0x134/0x1180 io_submit_sqes+0x48c/0xe90 __do_sys_io_uring_enter+0x574/0x8b0 do_syscall_64+0x5c/0xe0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
V4: changing backing tree to see if CKI tests will pass. The patch code has not changed between any versions.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38444?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38444?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-38444 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38444 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as AZL-65693, AZL-72926, BELL-CVE-2025-38444, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38444, GHSA-fm9v-j96x-64jx, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38444 and 3 more.