CVE-2025-38305

MEDIUM
MEDIUM Priority: 0.01 BB Relevance: 36/100
Published: 2025-07-10 Modified: 2026-11-05 First seen: 2026-11-05 Status: active

Attack Surface

Low Complexity No Interaction

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV: Local
AC: Low
PR: Low
UI: None
S: Unchanged
C: None
I: None
A: High

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ptp: remove ptp->n_vclocks check logic in ptp_vclock_in_use() There is no disagreement that we should check both ptp->is_virtual_clock and ptp->n_vclocks to check if the ptp virtual clock is in use. However, when we acquire ptp->n_vclocks_mux to read ptp->n_vclocks in ptp_vclock_in_use(), we observe a recursive lock in the call trace starting from n_vclocks_store(). ============================================ WARNING: possible recursive locking detected 6.15.0-rc6 #1 Not tainted -------------------------------------------- syz.0.1540/13807 is trying to acquire lock: ffff888035a24868 (&ptp->n_vclocks_mux){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: ptp_vclock_in_use drivers/ptp/ptp_private.h:103 [inline] ffff888035a24868 (&ptp->n_vclocks_mux){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: ptp_clock_unregister+0x21/0x250 drivers/ptp/ptp_clock.c:415 but task is already holding lock: ffff888030704868 (&ptp->n_vclocks_mux){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: n_vclocks_store+0xf1/0x6d0 drivers/ptp/ptp_sysfs.c:215 other info that might help us debug this: Possible unsafe locking scenario: CPU0 ---- lock(&ptp->n_vclocks_mux); lock(&ptp->n_vclocks_mux); *** DEADLOCK *** .... ============================================ The best way to solve this is to remove the logic that checks ptp->n_vclocks in ptp_vclock_in_use(). The reason why this is appropriate is that any path that uses ptp->n_vclocks must unconditionally check if ptp->n_vclocks is greater than 0 before unregistering vclocks, and all functions are already written this way. And in the function that uses ptp->n_vclocks, we already get ptp->n_vclocks_mux before unregistering vclocks. Therefore, we need to remove the redundant check for ptp->n_vclocks in ptp_vclock_in_use() to prevent recursive locking.

Affected Software (17)

VendorProductVersion
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < 5d217e7031a5c06d366580fc6ddbf43527b780d4
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < b1b73c452331451020be3bf4b014901015ae6663
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < 259119595227fd20f6aa29d85abe086b6fdd9eb1
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < b93e6fef4eda48e17d9c642b9abad98a066fd4a3
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < ef8fc007c28a30a4c0d90bf755e0f343d99bb392
Linux Linux 73f37068d540eba5f93ba3a0019bf479d35ebd76 < 87f7ce260a3c838b49e1dc1ceedf1006795157a2
Linux Linux 5.14
debian debian_linux 11.0
linux linux_kernel 5.14.1 – 5.15.186
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 5.14
linux linux_kernel 6.16

Bug Bounty Relevance

36 / 100
✓ Low complexity
✓ No user interaction

CVSS Score

5.5 / 10.0 v3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS — Exploitation Probability

0.18%
Raw Score 0.001830
Percentile 8.0%
Date 2026-11-13

EPSS Trend

2026-11-13
0.00183
2026-11-12
0.00179
2026-11-10
0.00179
2026-11-09
0.00179
2026-11-08
0.00179
2026-11-07
0.00179
2026-11-06
0.00179
2026-11-05
0.00179

Intelligence Sources

mitre ref →
nvd ref →