CVE-2025-38434 - CVE House
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Status published Unknown CVE-2025-38434

Revert "riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()"

Vulnerability Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Revert "riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()" This reverts commit ad5643cf2f69 ("riscv: Define TASK_SIZE_MAX for __access_ok()"). This commit changes TASK_SIZE_MAX to be LONG_MAX to optimize access_ok(), because the previous TASK_SIZE_MAX (default to TASK_SIZE) requires some computation. The reasoning was that all user addresses are less than LONG_MAX, and all kernel addresses are greater than LONG_MAX. Therefore access_ok() can filter kernel addresses. Addresses between TASK_SIZE and LONG_MAX are not valid user addresses, but access_ok() let them pass. That was thought to be okay, because they are not valid addresses at hardware level. Unfortunately, one case is missed: get_user_pages_fast() happily accepts addresses between TASK_SIZE and LONG_MAX. futex(), for instance, uses get_user_pages_fast(). This causes the problem reported by Robert [1]. Therefore, revert this commit. TASK_SIZE_MAX is changed to the default: TASK_SIZE. This unfortunately reduces performance, because TASK_SIZE is more expensive to compute compared to LONG_MAX. But correctness first, we can think about optimization later, if required.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

No credits recorded in the NVD database.

Affected Vendor

Affected Software

Linux
Vulnerable Versions:
ad5643cf2f699989daa85d909403febd6712fccb, 6.10, 0, 6.12.36, 6.15.5, 6.16

Timeline

Official Publish: July 25th, 2025
Last Modified: May 11th, 2026
Added to House: July 22nd, 2026

CVSS Vectors

No vector data available

Weaknesses (CWE)

No CWE data available

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs

No associated TTPs found for this vulnerability.