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.

352,427

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2025-38491 — linux / linux_kernel

Improper Locking

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

mptcp: make fallback action and fallback decision atomic

Syzkaller reported the following splat:

WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 7704 at net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 __mptcp_do_fallback net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 7704 at net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 mptcp_do_fallback net/mptcp/protocol.h:1244 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 7704 at net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 check_fully_established net/mptcp/options.c:982 [inline] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 7704 at net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 mptcp_incoming_options+0x21a8/0x2510 net/mptcp/options.c:1153 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 7704 Comm: syz.3.1419 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc3-gbd5ce2324dba #20 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:__mptcp_do_fallback net/mptcp/protocol.h:1223 [inline] RIP: 0010:mptcp_do_fallback net/mptcp/protocol.h:1244 [inline] RIP: 0010:check_fully_established net/mptcp/options.c:982 [inline] RIP: 0010:mptcp_incoming_options+0x21a8/0x2510 net/mptcp/options.c:1153 Code: 24 18 e8 bb 2a 00 fd e9 1b df ff ff e8 b1 21 0f 00 e8 ec 5f c4 fc 44 0f b7 ac 24 b0 00 00 00 e9 54 f1 ff ff e8 d9 5f c4 fc 90 <0f> 0b 90 e9 b8 f4 ff ff e8 8b 2a 00 fd e9 8d e6 ff ff e8 81 2a 00 RSP: 0018:ffff8880a3f08448 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8880180a8000 RCX: ffffffff84afcf45 RDX: ffff888090223700 RSI: ffffffff84afdaa7 RDI: 0000000000000001 RBP: ffff888017955780 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: ffff8880180a8910 R14: ffff8880a3e9d058 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 00005555791b8500(0000) GS:ffff88811c495000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000000110c2800b7 CR3: 0000000058e44000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 Call Trace: <IRQ> tcp_reset+0x26f/0x2b0 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c:4432 tcp_validate_incoming+0x1057/0x1b60 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c:5975 tcp_rcv_established+0x5b5/0x21f0 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c:6166 tcp_v4_do_rcv+0x5dc/0xa70 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:1925 tcp_v4_rcv+0x3473/0x44a0 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:2363 ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0xba/0x480 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:205 ip_local_deliver_finish+0x2f1/0x500 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:233 NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:317 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:311 [inline] ip_local_deliver+0x1be/0x560 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:254 dst_input include/net/dst.h:469 [inline] ip_rcv_finish net/ipv4/ip_input.c:447 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:317 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:311 [inline] ip_rcv+0x514/0x810 net/ipv4/ip_input.c:567 __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x197/0x1e0 net/core/dev.c:5975 __netif_receive_skb+0x1f/0x120 net/core/dev.c:6088 process_backlog+0x301/0x1360 net/core/dev.c:6440 __napi_poll.constprop.0+0xba/0x550 net/core/dev.c:7453 napi_poll net/core/dev.c:7517 [inline] net_rx_action+0xb44/0x1010 net/core/dev.c:7644 handle_softirqs+0x1d0/0x770 kernel/softirq.c:579 do_softirq+0x3f/0x90 kernel/softirq.c:480 </IRQ> <TASK> __local_bh_enable_ip+0xed/0x110 kernel/softirq.c:407 local_bh_enable include/linux/bottom_half.h:33 [inline] inet_csk_listen_stop+0x2c5/0x1070 net/ipv4/inet_connection_sock.c:1524 mptcp_check_listen_stop.part.0+0x1cc/0x220 net/mptcp/protocol.c:2985 mptcp_check_listen_stop net/mptcp/mib.h:118 [inline] __mptcp_close+0x9b9/0xbd0 net/mptcp/protocol.c:3000 mptcp_close+0x2f/0x140 net/mptcp/protocol.c:3066 inet_release+0xed/0x200 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:435 inet6_release+0x4f/0x70 net/ipv6/af_inet6.c:487 __sock_release+0xb3/0x270 net/socket.c:649 sock_close+0x1c/0x30 net/socket.c:1439 __fput+0x402/0xb70 fs/file_table.c:465 task_work_run+0x150/0x240 kernel/task_work.c:227 resume_user_mode_work include/linux/resume_user_mode.h:50 [inline] exit_to_user_mode_loop+0xd4 ---truncated---

Published: Jul 28, 2025
Updated: Jan 8, 2026
CVE: CVE-2025-38491
Severity: Medium
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Medium
Score: 5.5
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWEs:

CWE-667

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
linux / linux_kernel	5.10.228	5.11
linux / linux_kernel	5.15.169	5.16
linux / linux_kernel	5.19	6.1.149
linux / linux_kernel	6.2	6.6.101
linux / linux_kernel	6.7	6.12.40
linux / linux_kernel	6.13	6.15.8
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc1	6.16-rc1.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc2	6.16-rc2.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc3	6.16-rc3.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc4	6.16-rc4.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc5	6.16-rc5.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.16-rc6	6.16-rc6.x
debian / debian_linux	11.0	11.0.x

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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.