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UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2025-38282

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kernfs: Relax constraint in draining guard The active reference lifecycle provides the break/unbreak mechanism but the active reference is not truly active after unbreak -- callers…

MEDIUM 5.5EPSS 0.19%

Does this matter?

Lower severity and a low EPSS score (0.19%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kernfs: Relax constraint in draining guard The active reference lifecycle provides the break/unbreak mechanism but the active reference is not truly active after unbreak -- callers don't use it afterwards but it's important for proper pairing of kn->active counting. Assuming this mechanism is in place, the WARN check in kernfs_should_drain_open_files() is too sensitive -- it may transiently catch those (rightful) callers between kernfs_unbreak_active_protection() and kernfs_put_active() as found out by Chen Ridong: kernfs_remove_by_name_ns kernfs_get_active // active=1 __kernfs_remove // active=0x80000002 kernfs_drain ... wait_event //waiting (active == 0x80000001) kernfs_break_active_protection // active = 0x80000001 // continue kernfs_unbreak_active_protection // active = 0x80000002 ... kernfs_should_drain_open_files // warning occurs kernfs_put_active To avoid the false positives (mind panic_on_warn) remove the check altogether. (This is meant as quick fix, I think active reference break/unbreak may be simplified with larger rework.)

CVSS 3.1
5.5 MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS
0.19% probability · 8th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Affected
linux/linux kernel · debian/debian linux
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
EPSS trend
0%3%5%27 October 2026: 0.19%27 October 202627 October 2026

EPSS 0.2% since 27 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.