CVE-2025-11411: 
Unbound vulnerability analysis and mitigation

A security update has been released for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 addressing CVE-2025-11411. The update is rated as having an Important security impact and affects the kernel packages, which contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system (Red Hat Advisory).

The vulnerability exists in the kernel's sunrpc (Remote Procedure Call) service handling. The issue occurs when a client sends a specially crafted packet to the kernel RPC server. If decoding the RPC reply fails in a way that returns SVCGARBAGE without setting the rqacceptstatp pointer, that pointer can be dereferenced and a value stored there, potentially leading to a system crash or memory corruption ([Rapid7](https://www.rapid7.com/db/vulnerabilities/almalinux-cve-2025-38089/)).

If exploited, this vulnerability can lead to system crashes when it's the first time a thread processes an RPC request, as the NULL pointer will be dereferenced. In other scenarios, it could result in memory corruption, potentially affecting system stability and security (Rapid7).

The fix involves handling SVCGARBAGE returns as AUTHERROR with a reason of AUTHBADCRED instead of returning GARBAGEARGS. This modification prevents the problematic interaction with the rpcacceptstatp pointer. Users should apply the security update provided by Red Hat, which requires a system reboot to take effect (Red Hat Advisory).