CVE-2025-38735 gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown
A local attacker can trigger a kernel panic by invoking ethtool operations after network device shutdown, causing a 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-2025-38735?
CVE-2025-38735 is a high-severity vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 5 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:
gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown
A crash can occur if an ethtool operation is invoked after shutdown() is called.
shutdown() is invoked during system shutdown to stop DMA operations without performing expensive deallocations. It is discouraged to unregister the netdev in this path, so the device may still be visible to userspace and kernel helpers.
In gve, shutdown() tears down most internal data structures. If an ethtool operation is dispatched after shutdown(), it will dereference freed or NULL pointers, leading to a kernel panic. While graceful shutdown normally quiesces userspace before invoking the reboot syscall, forced shutdowns (as observed on GCP VMs) can still trigger this path.
Fix by calling netif_device_detach() in shutdown(). This marks the device as detached so the ethtool ioctl handler will skip dispatching operations to the driver.
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38735?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38735?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38735 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38735 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38735, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38735, GHSA-7wxg-2396-hr4x, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-38735, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-38735, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38735 and 1 more.