CVE-2025-38722 habanalabs: fix UAF in export_dmabuf()
A use-after-free vulnerability in the habanalabs driver allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code or escalate privileges via a race condition.
- 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-2025-38722?
CVE-2025-38722 is a high-severity use after free 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:
habanalabs: fix UAF in export_dmabuf()
As soon as we'd inserted a file reference into descriptor table, another thread could close it. That's fine for the case when all we are doing is returning that descriptor to userland (it's a race, but it's a userland race and there's nothing the kernel can do about it). However, if we follow fd_install() with any kind of access to objects that would be destroyed on close (be it the struct file itself or anything destroyed by its ->release()), we have a UAF.
dma_buf_fd() is a combination of reserving a descriptor and fd_install(). habanalabs export_dmabuf() calls it and then proceeds to access the objects destroyed on close. In particular, it grabs an extra reference to another struct file that will be dropped as part of ->release() for ours; that "will be" is actually "might have already been".
Fix that by reserving descriptor before anything else and do fd_install() only when everything had been set up. As a side benefit, we no longer have the failure exit with file already created, but reference to underlying file (as well as ->dmabuf_export_cnt, etc.) not grabbed yet; unlike dma_buf_fd(), fd_install() can't fail.
Weakness: CWE-416
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38722?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38722?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2025-38722 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38722 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as AZL-66881, BELL-CVE-2025-38722, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38722, GHSA-mq33-37wv-8g5g, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38722, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38722 and 1 more.