CVE-2025-38521 drm/imagination: Fix kernel crash when hard resetting the GPU
A flaw in the Imagination GPU driver causes a kernel crash during hard resets, 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-2025-38521?
CVE-2025-38521 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 Aug 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:
drm/imagination: Fix kernel crash when hard resetting the GPU
The GPU hard reset sequence calls pm_runtime_force_suspend() and pm_runtime_force_resume(), which according to their documentation should only be used during system-wide PM transitions to sleep states.
The main issue though is that depending on some internal runtime PM state as seen by pm_runtime_force_suspend() (whether the usage count is <= 1), pm_runtime_force_resume() might not resume the device unless needed. If that happens, the runtime PM resume callback pvr_power_device_resume() is not called, the GPU clocks are not re-enabled, and the kernel crashes on the next attempt to access GPU registers as part of the power-on sequence.
Replace calls to pm_runtime_force_suspend() and pm_runtime_force_resume() with direct calls to the driver's runtime PM callbacks, pvr_power_device_suspend() and pvr_power_device_resume(), to ensure clocks are re-enabled and avoid the kernel crash.
Weakness: CWE-668
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38521?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38521?
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-2025-38521 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38521 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38521, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38521, GHSA-9rxx-pq63-85w7, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-38521, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38521, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38521.