CVE-2025-39711 media: ivsc: Fix crash at shutdown due to missing mei_cldev_disable() calls

What is CVE-2025-39711?

CVE-2025-39711 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, 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:

media: ivsc: Fix crash at shutdown due to missing mei_cldev_disable() calls

Both the ACE and CSI driver are missing a mei_cldev_disable() call in their remove() function.

This causes the mei_cl client to stay part of the mei_device->file_list list even though its memory is freed by mei_cl_bus_dev_release() calling kfree(cldev->cl).

This leads to a use-after-free when mei_vsc_remove() runs mei_stop() which first removes all mei bus devices calling mei_ace_remove() and mei_csi_remove() followed by mei_cl_bus_dev_release() and then calls mei_cl_all_disconnect() which walks over mei_device->file_list dereferecing the just freed cldev->cl.

And mei_vsc_remove() it self is run at shutdown because of the platform_device_unregister(tp->pdev) in vsc_tp_shutdown()

When building a kernel with KASAN this leads to the following KASAN report:

[ 106.634504] ================================================================== [ 106.634623] BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in mei_cl_set_disconnected (drivers/misc/mei/client.c:783) mei [ 106.634683] Read of size 4 at addr ffff88819cb62018 by task systemd-shutdow/1 [ 106.634729] [ 106.634767] Tainted: [E]=UNSIGNED_MODULE [ 106.634770] Hardware name: Dell Inc. XPS 16 9640/09CK4V, BIOS 1.12.0 02/10/2025 [ 106.634773] Call Trace: [ 106.634777] <TASK> ... [ 106.634871] kasan_report (mm/kasan/report.c:221 mm/kasan/report.c:636) [ 106.634901] mei_cl_set_disconnected (drivers/misc/mei/client.c:783) mei [ 106.634921] mei_cl_all_disconnect (drivers/misc/mei/client.c:2165 (discriminator 4)) mei [ 106.634941] mei_reset (drivers/misc/mei/init.c:163) mei ... [ 106.635042] mei_stop (drivers/misc/mei/init.c:348) mei [ 106.635062] mei_vsc_remove (drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h:784 drivers/misc/mei/platform-vsc.c:393) mei_vsc [ 106.635066] platform_remove (drivers/base/platform.c:1424)

Add the missing mei_cldev_disable() calls so that the mei_cl gets removed from mei_device->file_list before it is freed to fix this.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-39711?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-39711?

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-2025-39711 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-39711 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 BELL-CVE-2025-39711, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-39711, GHSA-pr76-fcf6-2xg3, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-39711, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-39711, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-39711.