CVE-2025-38469 KVM: x86/xen: Fix cleanup logic in emulation of Xen schedop poll hypercalls
A missing cleanup path in KVM Xen hypercall emulation can cause a null pointer dereference, leading to a 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-2025-38469?
CVE-2025-38469 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 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:
KVM: x86/xen: Fix cleanup logic in emulation of Xen schedop poll hypercalls
kvm_xen_schedop_poll does a kmalloc_array() when a VM polls the host for more than one event channel potr (nr_ports > 1).
After the kmalloc_array(), the error paths need to go through the "out" label, but the call to kvm_read_guest_virt() does not.
[Adjusted commit message. - Paolo]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38469?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38469?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38469 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38469 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38469, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38469, GHSA-632w-7gxq-vxq4, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38469, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38469.