CVE-2025-38497 usb: gadget: configfs: Fix OOB read on empty string write
A local attacker can cause a kernel crash by writing an empty string to specific USB gadget configfs attributes, leading to 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-2025-38497?
CVE-2025-38497 is a high-severity vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, 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:
usb: gadget: configfs: Fix OOB read on empty string write
When writing an empty string to either 'qw_sign' or 'landingPage' sysfs attributes, the store functions attempt to access page[l - 1] before validating that the length 'l' is greater than zero.
This patch fixes the vulnerability by adding a check at the beginning of os_desc_qw_sign_store() and webusb_landingPage_store() to handle the zero-length input case gracefully by returning immediately.
Weakness: CWE-125
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38497?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38497?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38497 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38497 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38497, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38497, GHSA-qhvh-q9v2-923q, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38497, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38497, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-38497 and 2 more.