CVE-2025-38395: 
Linux Kernel vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-38395 is a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's GPIO regulator subsystem, discovered and disclosed in July 2025. The vulnerability affects the memory allocation for GPIO descriptors in the regulator driver, where drvdata::gpiods is allocated memory for only one pointer instead of the required array size based on config::ngpios (Ubuntu Security, Red Hat Portal).

The vulnerability stems from an out-of-bounds access issue in the GPIO regulator driver where drvdata::gpiods is meant to hold an array of 'gpio_desc' pointers. The flaw occurs because memory is allocated for only one pointer when config::ngpios is greater than 1, leading to potential out-of-bounds memory access. The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.6 with the vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H (Red Hat Portal).

The impact of this vulnerability is limited by its attack vector, requiring privileged access. An attacker must have the ability to provision or modify kernel-space regulator configuration through device tree/ACPI tables, module parameters, or platform driver binding to set ngpios > 1 and trigger the allocation/use issue. The vulnerability can lead to out-of-bounds memory access, potentially resulting in system crashes or memory corruption (Red Hat Portal).

To mitigate this vulnerability, system administrators can prevent the gpio-regulator module from being loaded. Red Hat recommends blacklisting the kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically. For detailed instructions on blacklisting kernel modules, refer to Red Hat's documentation (Red Hat Portal).