Vulnerability Database

352,427

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2025-38111 — linux / linux_kernel

Out-of-bounds Read

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

net/mdiobus: Fix potential out-of-bounds read/write access

When using publicly available tools like 'mdio-tools' to read/write data from/to network interface and its PHY via mdiobus, there is no verification of parameters passed to the ioctl and it accepts any mdio address. Currently there is support for 32 addresses in kernel via PHY_MAX_ADDR define, but it is possible to pass higher value than that via ioctl. While read/write operation should generally fail in this case, mdiobus provides stats array, where wrong address may allow out-of-bounds read/write.

Fix that by adding address verification before read/write operation. While this excludes this access from any statistics, it improves security of read/write operation.

  • Published: Jul 3, 2025
  • Updated: Dec 17, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2025-38111
  • Severity: High
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 7.1
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

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.