Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2025-38060 json

bpf: copy_verifier_state() should copy 'loop_entry' field

published last yr. modified 19d ago also EUVD-2025-18593

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: copy_verifier_state() should copy 'loop_entry' field

The bpf_verifier_state.loop_entry state should be copied by copy_verifier_state(). Otherwise, .loop_entry values from unrelated states would poison env->cur_state.

Additionally, env->stack should not contain any states with .loop_entry != NULL. The states in env->stack are yet to be verified, while .loop_entry is set for states that reached an equivalent state. This means that env->cur_state->loop_entry should always be NULL after pop_stack().

See the selftest in the next commit for an example of the program that is not safe yet is accepted by verifier w/o this fix.

This change has some verification performance impact for selftests:

File Program Insns (A) Insns (B) Insns (DIFF) States (A) States (B) States (DIFF) ---------------------------------- ---------------------------- --------- --------- -------------- ---------- ---------- ------------- arena_htab.bpf.o arena_htab_llvm 717 426 -291 (-40.59%) 57 37 -20 (-35.09%) arena_htab_asm.bpf.o arena_htab_asm 597 445 -152 (-25.46%) 47 37 -10 (-21.28%) arena_list.bpf.o arena_list_del 309 279 -30 (-9.71%) 23 14 -9 (-39.13%) iters.bpf.o iter_subprog_check_stacksafe 155 141 -14 (-9.03%) 15 14 -1 (-6.67%) iters.bpf.o iter_subprog_iters 1094 1003 -91 (-8.32%) 88 83 -5 (-5.68%) iters.bpf.o loop_state_deps2 479 725 +246 (+51.36%) 46 63 +17 (+36.96%) kmem_cache_iter.bpf.o open_coded_iter 63 59 -4 (-6.35%) 7 6 -1 (-14.29%) verifier_bits_iter.bpf.o max_words 92 84 -8 (-8.70%) 8 7 -1 (-12.50%) verifier_iterating_callbacks.bpf.o cond_break2 113 107 -6 (-5.31%) 12 12 +0 (+0.00%)

And significant negative impact for sched_ext:

File Program Insns (A) Insns (B) Insns (DIFF) States (A) States (B) States (DIFF) ----------------- ---------------------- --------- --------- -------------------- ---------- ---------- ------------------ bpf.bpf.o lavd_init 7039 14723 +7684 (+109.16%) 490 1139 +649 (+132.45%) bpf.bpf.o layered_dispatch 11485 10548 -937 (-8.16%) 848 762 -86 (-10.14%) bpf.bpf.o layered_dump 7422 1000001 +992579 (+13373.47%) 681 31178 +30497 (+4478.27%) bpf.bpf.o layered_enqueue 16854 71127 +54273 (+322.02%) 1611 6450 +4839 (+300.37%) bpf.bpf.o p2dq_dispatch 665 791 +126 (+18.95%) 68 78 +10 (+14.71%) bpf.bpf.o p2dq_init 2343 2980 +637 (+27.19%) 201 237 +36 (+17.91%) bpf.bpf.o refresh_layer_cpumasks 16487 674760 +658273 (+3992.68%) 1770 65370 +63600 (+3593.22%) bpf.bpf.o rusty_select_cpu 1937 40872 +38935 (+2010.07%) 177 3210 +3033 (+1713.56%) scx_central.bpf.o central_dispatch 636 2687 +2051 (+322.48%) 63 227 +164 (+260.32%) scx_nest.bpf.o nest_init 636 815 +179 (+28.14%) 60 73 +13 (+21.67%) scx_qmap.bpf.o qmap_dispatch ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.6.160, 6.12.31, 6.14.9, 6.15
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.32-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38060

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1044.44
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.52
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1030.33
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.51

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38060

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-syms-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-coco_debug SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-source-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02923-1SUSE-SU-2025:02538-1SUSE-SU-2025:20498-1SUSE-SU-2025:20483-1SUSE-SU-2025:02335-1SUSE-SU-2025:02333-1

Is CVE-2025-38060 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2025-38060 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: Linux kernel: BPF verifier security bypass due to incorrect state handling

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.