CVE-2025-38018

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A local attacker with low privileges could cause a system crash, known as a kernel panic, by exploiting an issue in the net/tls component. This vulnerability arises from an improper handling of memory allocation failures, leading to a critical error that results in a Denial of Service (DoS).

A moderate-impact flaw was found in the Linux kernel net/tls subsystem. On the TLS receive strparser (tls_strp) path, when a memory allocation failure occurs, the receive queue is detached from the fragment list and the frag_list pointer is set to NULL, but the record's full_len is not reset. The receive path then continues processing the partial record on the next call and dereferences the NULL pointer, causing a kernel NULL pointer dereference and a kernel panic. A local attacker with low privileges able to trigger this condition on a system using kernel TLS receive offload could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash). In Red Hat's products this affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (kernel and kernel-rt) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, where the tls_strp receive path is present; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, and 8, Red Hat In-Vehicle OS, and the Hosted OpenShift environments are not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in those offerings. Red Hat and NIST both rate this flaw Moderate (CVSS 5.5, AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H); this differs from the CVE.org score of 7.5 with a network attack vector, because triggering the flaw requires a local low-privileged user and depends on an allocation failure on the TLS receive path, so it does not constitute a remotely exploitable denial of service.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.