How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, and whether compensating controls exist. A Medium CVSS on an exposed production system can be more urgent than a Critical on an isolated non-production host.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete asset discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.

373,546

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2025-38019 — linux / linux_kernel

Use After Free

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mlxsw: spectrum_router: Fix use-after-free when deleting GRE net devices

The driver only offloads neighbors that are constructed on top of net devices registered by it or their uppers (which are all Ethernet). The device supports GRE encapsulation and decapsulation of forwarded traffic, but the driver will not offload dummy neighbors constructed on top of GRE net devices as they are not uppers of its net devices:

ip link add name gre1 up type gre tos inherit local 192.0.2.1 remote 198.51.100.1

ip neigh add 0.0.0.0 lladdr 0.0.0.0 nud noarp dev gre1

$ ip neigh show dev gre1 nud noarp 0.0.0.0 lladdr 0.0.0.0 NOARP

(Note that the neighbor is not marked with 'offload')

When the driver is reloaded and the existing configuration is replayed, the driver does not perform the same check regarding existing neighbors and offloads the previously added one:

devlink dev reload pci/0000:01:00.0

$ ip neigh show dev gre1 nud noarp 0.0.0.0 lladdr 0.0.0.0 offload NOARP

If the neighbor is later deleted, the driver will ignore the notification (given the GRE net device is not its upper) and will therefore keep referencing freed memory, resulting in a use-after-free [1] when the net device is deleted:

ip neigh del 0.0.0.0 lladdr 0.0.0.0 dev gre1

ip link del dev gre1

Fix by skipping neighbor replay if the net device for which the replay is performed is not our upper.

[1] BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in mlxsw_sp_neigh_entry_update+0x1ea/0x200 Read of size 8 at addr ffff888155b0e420 by task ip/2282 [...] Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x6f/0xa0 print_address_description.constprop.0+0x6f/0x350 print_report+0x108/0x205 kasan_report+0xdf/0x110 mlxsw_sp_neigh_entry_update+0x1ea/0x200 mlxsw_sp_router_rif_gone_sync+0x2a8/0x440 mlxsw_sp_rif_destroy+0x1e9/0x750 mlxsw_sp_netdevice_ipip_ol_event+0x3c9/0xdc0 mlxsw_sp_router_netdevice_event+0x3ac/0x15e0 notifier_call_chain+0xca/0x150 call_netdevice_notifiers_info+0x7f/0x100 unregister_netdevice_many_notify+0xc8c/0x1d90 rtnl_dellink+0x34e/0xa50 rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x6fb/0xb70 netlink_rcv_skb+0x131/0x360 netlink_unicast+0x426/0x710 netlink_sendmsg+0x75a/0xc20 __sock_sendmsg+0xc1/0x150 ____sys_sendmsg+0x5aa/0x7b0 ___sys_sendmsg+0xfc/0x180 __sys_sendmsg+0x121/0x1b0 do_syscall_64+0xbb/0x1d0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53

Published: Jun 18, 2025
Updated: Nov 15, 2025
CVE: CVE-2025-38019
Severity: High
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: High
Score: 7.8
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

CWE-416

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
linux / linux_kernel	6.6	6.6.92
linux / linux_kernel	6.7	6.12.30
linux / linux_kernel	6.13	6.14.8
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc1	6.15-rc1.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc2	6.15-rc2.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc3	6.15-rc3.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc4	6.15-rc4.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc5	6.15-rc5.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.15-rc6	6.15-rc6.x

Deep Security Visibility Without the Complexity

SynScan provides clear, real-time security insights so you can monitor your attack surface, spot risks early, and act fast—without extra complexity.

No setup fees
5-min deployment
Cancel anytime

Book a Demo

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.