CVE-2025-38716 hfs: fix general protection fault in hfs_find_init()

What is CVE-2025-38716?

CVE-2025-38716 is a medium-severity 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:

hfs: fix general protection fault in hfs_find_init()

The hfs_find_init() method can trigger the crash if tree pointer is NULL:

[ 45.746290][ T9787] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000008: 0000 [#1] SMP KAI [ 45.747287][ T9787] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000040-0x0000000000000047] [ 45.748716][ T9787] CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 9787 Comm: repro Not tainted 6.16.0-rc3 #10 PREEMPT(full) [ 45.750250][ T9787] Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 [ 45.751983][ T9787] RIP: 0010:hfs_find_init+0x86/0x230 [ 45.752834][ T9787] Code: c1 ea 03 80 3c 02 00 0f 85 9a 01 00 00 4c 8d 6b 40 48 c7 45 18 00 00 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc [ 45.755574][ T9787] RSP: 0018:ffffc90015157668 EFLAGS: 00010202 [ 45.756432][ T9787] RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffffffff819a4d09 [ 45.757457][ T9787] RDX: 0000000000000008 RSI: ffffffff819acd3a RDI: ffffc900151576e8 [ 45.758282][ T9787] RBP: ffffc900151576d0 R08: 0000000000000005 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 45.758943][ T9787] R10: 0000000080000000 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000000004 [ 45.759619][ T9787] R13: 0000000000000040 R14: ffff88802c50814a R15: 0000000000000000 [ 45.760293][ T9787] FS: 00007ffb72734540(0000) GS:ffff8880cec64000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 45.761050][ T9787] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 45.761606][ T9787] CR2: 00007f9bd8225000 CR3: 000000010979a000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [ 45.762286][ T9787] Call Trace: [ 45.762570][ T9787] <TASK> [ 45.762824][ T9787] hfs_ext_read_extent+0x190/0x9d0 [ 45.763269][ T9787] ? submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x2dd/0xce0 [ 45.763766][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_ext_read_extent+0x10/0x10 [ 45.764250][ T9787] hfs_get_block+0x55f/0x830 [ 45.764646][ T9787] block_read_full_folio+0x36d/0x850 [ 45.765105][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_get_block+0x10/0x10 [ 45.765541][ T9787] ? const_folio_flags+0x5b/0x100 [ 45.765972][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_read_folio+0x10/0x10 [ 45.766415][ T9787] filemap_read_folio+0xbe/0x290 [ 45.766840][ T9787] ? __pfx_filemap_read_folio+0x10/0x10 [ 45.767325][ T9787] ? __filemap_get_folio+0x32b/0xbf0 [ 45.767780][ T9787] do_read_cache_folio+0x263/0x5c0 [ 45.768223][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_read_folio+0x10/0x10 [ 45.768666][ T9787] read_cache_page+0x5b/0x160 [ 45.769070][ T9787] hfs_btree_open+0x491/0x1740 [ 45.769481][ T9787] hfs_mdb_get+0x15e2/0x1fb0 [ 45.769877][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_mdb_get+0x10/0x10 [ 45.770316][ T9787] ? find_held_lock+0x2b/0x80 [ 45.770731][ T9787] ? lockdep_init_map_type+0x5c/0x280 [ 45.771200][ T9787] ? lockdep_init_map_type+0x5c/0x280 [ 45.771674][ T9787] hfs_fill_super+0x38e/0x720 [ 45.772092][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_fill_super+0x10/0x10 [ 45.772549][ T9787] ? snprintf+0xbe/0x100 [ 45.772931][ T9787] ? __pfx_snprintf+0x10/0x10 [ 45.773350][ T9787] ? do_raw_spin_lock+0x129/0x2b0 [ 45.773796][ T9787] ? find_held_lock+0x2b/0x80 [ 45.774215][ T9787] ? set_blocksize+0x40a/0x510 [ 45.774636][ T9787] ? sb_set_blocksize+0x176/0x1d0 [ 45.775087][ T9787] ? setup_bdev_super+0x369/0x730 [ 45.775533][ T9787] get_tree_bdev_flags+0x384/0x620 [ 45.775985][ T9787] ? __pfx_hfs_fill_super+0x10/0x10 [ 45.776453][ T9787] ? __pfx_get_tree_bdev_flags+0x10/0x10 [ 45.776950][ T9787] ? bpf_lsm_capable+0x9/0x10 [ 45.777365][ T9787] ? security_capable+0x80/0x260 [ 45.777803][ T9787] vfs_get_tree+0x8e/0x340 [ 45.778203][ T9787] path_mount+0x13de/0x2010 [ 45.778604][ T9787] ? kmem_cache_free+0x2b0/0x4c0 [ 45.779052][ T9787] ? __pfx_path_mount+0x10/0x10 [ 45.779480][ T9787] ? getname_flags.part.0+0x1c5/0x550 [ 45.779954][ T9787] ? putname+0x154/0x1a0 [ 45.780335][ T9787] __x64_sys_mount+0x27b/0x300 [ 45.780758][ T9787] ? __pfx___x64_sys_mount+0x10/0x10 [ 45.781232][ T9787] ---truncated---

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38716?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-38716?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-38716 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38716 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-66842, BELL-CVE-2025-38716, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38716, GHSA-pqjx-hgww-fpj7, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38716, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38716 and 3 more.