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.

374,078

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2025-39831 — linux / linux_kernel

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

fbnic: Move phylink resume out of service_task and into open/close

The fbnic driver was presenting with the following locking assert coming out of a PM resume: [ 42.208116][ T164] RTNL: assertion failed at drivers/net/phy/phylink.c (2611) [ 42.208492][ T164] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 164 at drivers/net/phy/phylink.c:2611 phylink_resume+0x190/0x1e0 [ 42.208872][ T164] Modules linked in: [ 42.209140][ T164] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 164 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.17.0-rc2-virtme #134 PREEMPT(full) [ 42.209496][ T164] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.17.0-5.fc42 04/01/2014 [ 42.209861][ T164] RIP: 0010:phylink_resume+0x190/0x1e0 [ 42.210057][ T164] Code: 83 e5 01 0f 85 b0 fe ff ff c6 05 1c cd 3e 02 01 90 ba 33 0a 00 00 48 c7 c6 20 3a 1d a5 48 c7 c7 e0 3e 1d a5 e8 21 b8 90 fe 90 <0f> 0b 90 90 e9 86 fe ff ff e8 42 ea 1f ff e9 e2 fe ff ff 48 89 ef [ 42.210708][ T164] RSP: 0018:ffffc90000affbd8 EFLAGS: 00010296 [ 42.210983][ T164] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8880078d8400 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 42.211235][ T164] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 1ffffffff4f10938 RDI: 0000000000000001 [ 42.211466][ T164] RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ffffffffa2ae79ea R09: fffffbfff4b3eb84 [ 42.211707][ T164] R10: 0000000000000003 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff888007ad8000 [ 42.211997][ T164] R13: 0000000000000002 R14: ffff888006a18800 R15: ffffffffa34c59e0 [ 42.212234][ T164] FS: 00007f0dc8e39740(0000) GS:ffff88808f51f000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 42.212505][ T164] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 42.212704][ T164] CR2: 00007f0dc8e9fe10 CR3: 000000000b56d003 CR4: 0000000000772ef0 [ 42.213227][ T164] PKRU: 55555554 [ 42.213366][ T164] Call Trace: [ 42.213483][ T164] <TASK> [ 42.213565][ T164] __fbnic_pm_attach.isra.0+0x8e/0xa0 [ 42.213725][ T164] pci_reset_function+0x116/0x1d0 [ 42.213895][ T164] reset_store+0xa0/0x100 [ 42.214025][ T164] ? pci_dev_reset_attr_is_visible+0x50/0x50 [ 42.214221][ T164] ? sysfs_file_kobj+0xc1/0x1e0 [ 42.214374][ T164] ? sysfs_kf_write+0x65/0x160 [ 42.214526][ T164] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x2f8/0x4c0 [ 42.214677][ T164] ? kernfs_vma_page_mkwrite+0x1f0/0x1f0 [ 42.214836][ T164] new_sync_write+0x308/0x6f0 [ 42.214987][ T164] ? __lock_acquire+0x34c/0x740 [ 42.215135][ T164] ? new_sync_read+0x6f0/0x6f0 [ 42.215288][ T164] ? lock_acquire.part.0+0xbc/0x260 [ 42.215440][ T164] ? ksys_write+0xff/0x200 [ 42.215590][ T164] ? perf_trace_sched_switch+0x6d0/0x6d0 [ 42.215742][ T164] vfs_write+0x65e/0xbb0 [ 42.215876][ T164] ksys_write+0xff/0x200 [ 42.215994][ T164] ? __ia32_sys_read+0xc0/0xc0 [ 42.216141][ T164] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x269/0x9f0 [ 42.216292][ T164] ? rcu_is_watching+0x15/0xd0 [ 42.216442][ T164] do_syscall_64+0xbb/0x360 [ 42.216591][ T164] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 [ 42.216784][ T164] RIP: 0033:0x7f0dc8ea9986

A bit of digging showed that we were invoking the phylink_resume as a part of the fbnic_up path when we were enabling the service task while not holding the RTNL lock. We should be enabling this sooner as a part of the ndo_open path and then just letting the service task come online later. This will help to enforce the correct locking and brings the phylink interface online at the same time as the network interface, instead of at a later time.

I tested this on QEMU to verify this was working by putting the system to sleep using "echo mem > /sys/power/state" to put the system to sleep in the guest and then using the command "system_wakeup" in the QEMU monitor.

Published: Sep 16, 2025
Updated: Dec 3, 2025
CVE: CVE-2025-39831
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

No CWE or OWASP classifications available.

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
linux / linux_kernel	6.11	6.12.45
linux / linux_kernel	6.13	6.16.5
linux / linux_kernel	6.17-rc1	6.17-rc1.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.17-rc2	6.17-rc2.x
linux / linux_kernel	6.17-rc3	6.17-rc3.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.