CVE-2025-38551: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio-net: fix recursived rtnl_lock() during probe() The deadlock appears in a stack trace like: virtnet_probe() rtnl_lock() virtio_config_changed_work() netdev_notify_peers() rtnl_lock() It happens if the VMM sends a VIRTIO_NET_S_ANNOUNCE request while the virtio-net driver is still probing. The config_work in probe() will get scheduled until virtnet_open() enables the config change notification via virtio_config_driver_enable().

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 6.11.2, before 6.12.40 (fixed in 6.12.40); from 6.13, before 6.15.8 (fixed in 6.15.8); version 6.16 only

Published 2025-08-16. Last modified 2026-06-17.