# CVE-2025-38690: drm/xe/migrate: prevent infinite recursion

> A local attacker can trigger infinite recursion in the Linux kernel's Xe driver, causing a stack overflow and system crash.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 Sep 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-38690, GHSA-47v5-j4qc-p3gp, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38690

## What is CVE-2025-38690?

CVE-2025-38690 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Sep 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/xe/migrate: prevent infinite recursion

If the buf + offset is not aligned to XE_CAHELINE_BYTES we fallback to
using a bounce buffer. However the bounce buffer here is allocated on
the stack, and the only alignment requirement here is that it's
naturally aligned to u8, and not XE_CACHELINE_BYTES. If the bounce
buffer is also misaligned we then recurse back into the function again,
however the new bounce buffer might also not be aligned, and might never
be until we eventually blow through the stack, as we keep recursing.

Instead of using the stack use kmalloc, which should respect the
power-of-two alignment request here. Fixes a kernel panic when
triggering this path through eudebug.

v2 (Stuart):
 - Add build bug check for power-of-two restriction
 - s/EINVAL/ENOMEM/

(cherry picked from commit 38b34e928a08ba594c4bbf7118aa3aadacd62fff)

Weakness: CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38690?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38690?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38690 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38690 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-38690 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38690 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Sep 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38690 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38690/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38690/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38690
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38690
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38690

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38690/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.