What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-38542: net: appletalk: Fix device refcount leak in atrtr_create()

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2025-08-16 · updated 2026-07-30

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: appletalk: Fix device refcount leak in atrtr_create() When updating an existing route entry in atrtr_create(), the old device reference was not being released before assigning the new device, leading to a device refcount leak. Fix this by calling dev_put() to release the old device reference before holding the new one.

Affected products

• Debian Linux: 11.0
• Linux kernel: from 2.6.13 before 5.4.296; from 5.5 before 5.10.240; from 5.11 before 5.15.189; from 5.16 before 6.1.146; from 6.2 before 6.6.99; from 6.7 before 6.12.39 — fixed in 5.10.240, 5.15.189, 5.4.296, 6.1.146, 6.12.39, 6.15.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.240, 5.15.189, 5.4.296, 6.1.146. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/473f3eadfc73b0fb6d8dee5829d19a5772e387f7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4a17370da6e476d3d275534e9e9cd2d02c57ca46
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/64124cf0aab0dd1e18c0fb5ae66e45741e727f8b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/711c80f7d8b163d3ecd463cd96f07230f488e750
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a7852b01793669248dce0348d14df89e77a32afd
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b2f5dfa87367fdce9f8b995bc6c38f64f9ea2c90
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b92bedf71f25303e203a4e657489d76691a58119
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d2e9f50f0bdad73b64a871f25186b899624518c4
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00007.html
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html

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