What is CVE-2025-38633?

CVE-2025-38633 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, affecting Linux kernel versions from 6.16 onward and patched in 6.16.1 and 6.17. CVE-2025-38633 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2025-38633?

CVE-2025-38633 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-38633?

Yes, CVE-2025-38633 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.16.1 and 6.17. If you are running Linux kernel 6.16 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2025-38633 actively exploited?

CVE-2025-38633 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2025-38633

Medium

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: clk: spacemit: mark K1 pll1_d8 as critical The pll1_d8 clock is enabled by the boot loader, and is ultimately a parent for numerous clocks, including those used by APB and AXI buses. Guodong Xu discovered that this clock got disabled while responding to getting -EPROBE_DEFER when requesting a reset controller. The needed clock (CLK_DMA, along with its parents) had already been enabled. To respond to the probe deferral return, the CLK_DMA clock was disabled, and this led to parent clocks also reducing their enable count. When the enable count for pll1_d8 was decremented it became 0, which caused it to be disabled. This led to a system hang. Marking that clock critical resolves this by preventing it from being disabled. Define a new macro CCU_FACTOR_GATE_DEFINE() to allow clock flags to be supplied for a CCU_FACTOR_GATE clock.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2025-08-22

Last modified 2025-11-26

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Yes

CVSS 3.1 score

5.5

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Vector string

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

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.16 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.16.1, 6.17 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 6.16

Fixed in

✓ 6.16.1 6.16.x ✓ 6.17

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2025-38633 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/10948c00e548e9ad2ce9d765baf26dce2d9b806b
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7554729de27daf6d54bcf8689d863bbe267828bf
Patch

Details

CVE ID CVE-2025-38633

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.5 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2025-08-22

Modified 2025-11-26

KEV No

Patch

Yes

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-38633?

CVE-2025-38633 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.16 onward and has been patched in 6.16.1 and 6.17. CVE-2025-38633 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2025-38633?

CVE-2025-38633 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-38633?

Yes — CVE-2025-38633 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.16.1 and 6.17. If you are running Linux kernel 6.16 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2025-38633 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2025-38633 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.