GHSA-J349-5P3C-R8V4

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2025-09-05 18:31 – Updated: 2026-05-12 15:31
VLAI
Details

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

comedi: Fix use of uninitialized memory in do_insn_ioctl() and do_insnlist_ioctl()

syzbot reports a KMSAN kernel-infoleak in do_insn_ioctl(). A kernel buffer is allocated to hold insn->n samples (each of which is an unsigned int). For some instruction types, insn->n samples are copied back to user-space, unless an error code is being returned. The problem is that not all the instruction handlers that need to return data to userspace fill in the whole insn->n samples, so that there is an information leak. There is a similar syzbot report for do_insnlist_ioctl(), although it does not have a reproducer for it at the time of writing.

One culprit is insn_rw_emulate_bits() which is used as the handler for INSN_READ or INSN_WRITE instructions for subdevices that do not have a specific handler for that instruction, but do have an INSN_BITS handler. For INSN_READ it only fills in at most 1 sample, so if insn->n is greater than 1, the remaining insn->n - 1 samples copied to userspace will be uninitialized kernel data.

Another culprit is vm80xx_ai_insn_read() in the "vm80xx" driver. It never returns an error, even if it fails to fill the buffer.

Fix it in do_insn_ioctl() and do_insnlist_ioctl() by making sure that uninitialized parts of the allocated buffer are zeroed before handling each instruction.

Thanks to Arnaud Lecomte for their fix to do_insn_ioctl(). That fix replaced the call to kmalloc_array() with kcalloc(), but it is not always necessary to clear the whole buffer.

Severity
5.5 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Show details on source website
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2025-39684"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-908"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": false,
    "github_reviewed_at": null,
    "nvd_published_at": "2025-09-05T18:15:45Z",
    "severity": "MODERATE"
  },
  "details": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\ncomedi: Fix use of uninitialized memory in do_insn_ioctl() and do_insnlist_ioctl()\n\nsyzbot reports a KMSAN kernel-infoleak in `do_insn_ioctl()`.  A kernel\nbuffer is allocated to hold `insn-\u003en` samples (each of which is an\n`unsigned int`).  For some instruction types, `insn-\u003en` samples are\ncopied back to user-space, unless an error code is being returned.  The\nproblem is that not all the instruction handlers that need to return\ndata to userspace fill in the whole `insn-\u003en` samples, so that there is\nan information leak.  There is a similar syzbot report for\n`do_insnlist_ioctl()`, although it does not have a reproducer for it at\nthe time of writing.\n\nOne culprit is `insn_rw_emulate_bits()` which is used as the handler for\n`INSN_READ` or `INSN_WRITE` instructions for subdevices that do not have\na specific handler for that instruction, but do have an `INSN_BITS`\nhandler.  For `INSN_READ` it only fills in at most 1 sample, so if\n`insn-\u003en` is greater than 1, the remaining `insn-\u003en - 1` samples copied\nto userspace will be uninitialized kernel data.\n\nAnother culprit is `vm80xx_ai_insn_read()` in the \"vm80xx\" driver.  It\nnever returns an error, even if it fails to fill the buffer.\n\nFix it in `do_insn_ioctl()` and `do_insnlist_ioctl()` by making sure\nthat uninitialized parts of the allocated buffer are zeroed before\nhandling each instruction.\n\nThanks to Arnaud Lecomte for their fix to `do_insn_ioctl()`.  That fix\nreplaced the call to `kmalloc_array()` with `kcalloc()`, but it is not\nalways necessary to clear the whole buffer.",
  "id": "GHSA-j349-5p3c-r8v4",
  "modified": "2026-05-12T15:31:02Z",
  "published": "2025-09-05T18:31:26Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-39684"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-032379.html"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3cd212e895ca2d58963fdc6422502b10dd3966bb"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/868a1b68dcd9f2805bb86aa64862402f785d8c4a"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aecf0d557ddd95ce68193a5ee1dc4c87415ff08a"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d84f6e77ebe3359394df32ecd97e0d76a25283dc"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f3b0c9ec54736f3b8118f93a473d22e11ee65743"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ff4a7c18799c7fe999fa56c5cf276e13866b8c1a"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ]
}



Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.




Drag nodes to arrange them. Double-click a related vulnerability to open it, or a source to visit its link. The Physics button on the left tunes the layout and the simulation; the legend at the bottom left hides or shows nodes by kind and by sighting type.

Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Vulnerability timeline

Sightings and recorded dates, grouped by day · UTC

JSON
How durations are calculated

Following the VTEM framework (Black Hat USA 2015), time to patch starts when the vendor or a coordinator was informed, total time to patch at discovery, and disclosure to patch at public disclosure; vendor response time runs from the report to its acknowledgement. Time to exploit and time unpatched start at the earliest discovery or report, falling back to public disclosure. Unpatched time ends at the first recorded patch, or the calculation time when no patch is recorded. Exploitation to patch shows the interval between those two events; a published proof of concept is a public exploit, not exploitation.

Each result shows its source dates. A negative interval means the end event came first; when date-only inputs leave the order open, the result says so. Date-only inputs are approximate. The earliest evidence wins: KEV report dates and sightings are labelled as such. Records describing another vulnerability are listed but never calculated from, and a PoC alone does not establish exploitation. Missing patch evidence does not prove that no patch exists. Filters below change the event list only.

Loading timeline…




    Related by attack behaviour

    Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.