CVE-2025-38612 staging: fbtft: fix potential memory leak in fbtft_framebuffer_alloc()

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A memory leak in the Linux kernel's fbtft 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-2025-38612?

CVE-2025-38612 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 19 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:

staging: fbtft: fix potential memory leak in fbtft_framebuffer_alloc()

In the error paths after fb_info structure is successfully allocated, the memory allocated in fb_deferred_io_init() for info->pagerefs is not freed. Fix that by adding the cleanup function on the error path.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38612?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-38612?

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-2025-38612 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38612 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as AZL-66497, AZL-73608, BELL-CVE-2025-38612, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38612, GHSA-qxf4-8xgp-wwwr, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38612 and 5 more.

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