CVE-2025-38488 - CVE House
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Status published Unknown CVE-2025-38488

smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto

Vulnerability Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto The CVE-2024-50047 fix removed asynchronous crypto handling from crypt_message(), assuming all crypto operations are synchronous. However, when hardware crypto accelerators are used, this can cause use-after-free crashes: crypt_message() // Allocate the creq buffer containing the req creq = smb2_get_aead_req(..., &req); // Async encryption returns -EINPROGRESS immediately rc = enc ? crypto_aead_encrypt(req) : crypto_aead_decrypt(req); // Free creq while async operation is still in progress kvfree_sensitive(creq, ...); Hardware crypto modules often implement async AEAD operations for performance. When crypto_aead_encrypt/decrypt() returns -EINPROGRESS, the operation completes asynchronously. Without crypto_wait_req(), the function immediately frees the request buffer, leading to crashes when the driver later accesses the freed memory. This results in a use-after-free condition when the hardware crypto driver later accesses the freed request structure, leading to kernel crashes with NULL pointer dereferences. The issue occurs because crypto_alloc_aead() with mask=0 doesn't guarantee synchronous operation. Even without CRYPTO_ALG_ASYNC in the mask, async implementations can be selected. Fix by restoring the async crypto handling: - DECLARE_CRYPTO_WAIT(wait) for completion tracking - aead_request_set_callback() for async completion notification - crypto_wait_req() to wait for operation completion This ensures the request buffer isn't freed until the crypto operation completes, whether synchronous or asynchronous, while preserving the CVE-2024-50047 fix.

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:
8f14a476abba13144df5434871a7225fd29af633, ef51c0d544b1518b35364480317ab6d3468f205d, bce966530fd5542bbb422cb45ecb775f7a1a6bc3, 0809fb86ad13b29e1d6d491364fc7ea4fb545995, b0abcd65ec545701b8793e12bc27dc98042b151a, 538c26d9bf70c90edc460d18c81008a4e555925a, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.128, 6.6.57, 6.11.4, 6.12, 0, 5.10.241, 5.15.190, 6.1.147, 6.6.100, 6.12.40, 6.15.8, 6.16

Timeline

Official Publish: July 28th, 2025
Last Modified: May 23rd, 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.