IM
IronMonkey Threat Research

CVE-2025-38708 CRITICAL

Published: 2025-09-04 | Last Modified: 2026-07-30 | Status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drbd: add missing kref_get in handle_write_conflicts With `two-primaries` enabled, DRBD tries to detect "concurrent" writes and handle write conflicts, so that even if you write to the same sector simultaneously on both nodes, they end up with the identical data once the writes are completed. In handling "superseeded" writes, we forgot a kref_get, resulting in a premature drbd_destroy_device and use after free, and further to kernel crashes with symptoms. Relevance: No one should use DRBD as a random data generator, and apparently all users of "two-primaries" handle concurrent writes correctly on layer up. That is cluster file systems use some distributed lock manager, and live migration in virtualization environments stops writes on one node before starting writes on the other node. Which means that other than for "test cases", this code path is never taken in real life. FYI, in DRBD 9, things are handled differently nowadays. We still detect "write conflicts", but no longer try to be smart about them. We decided to disconnect hard instead: upper layers must not submit concurrent writes. If they do, that's their fault.

CVSS Metrics

Base Score: 7.8 (HIGH)

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack VectorLOCAL
Attack ComplexityLOW
Privileges RequiredLOW
User InteractionNONE
ScopeUNCHANGED
Confidentiality ImpactHIGH
Integrity ImpactHIGH
Availability ImpactHIGH

Source: [email protected]

Type: Primary

Exploitability Score: 1.8

Impact Score: 5.9

Weaknesses

Source Type Description
[email protected] Primary
en CWE-416

Affected Products

Vendor Product Version Update Type
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd36a0d5ac0> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd368dd8ac0> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd2dbc7a680> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd3701c7840> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd36a0d6340> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd36a0d7440> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd34927ce00> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd36a0d4cc0> Operating System
debian debian_linux 11.0 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7fd368dd8cc0> Operating System

Affected Configurations

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References