What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-38551: virtio-net: fix recursived rtnl_lock() during probe()

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2025-08-16 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio-net: fix recursived rtnl_lock() during probe() The deadlock appears in a stack trace like: virtnet_probe() rtnl_lock() virtio_config_changed_work() netdev_notify_peers() rtnl_lock() It happens if the VMM sends a VIRTIO_NET_S_ANNOUNCE request while the virtio-net driver is still probing. The config_work in probe() will get scheduled until virtnet_open() enables the config change notification via virtio_config_driver_enable().

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 6.11.2 before 6.12.40; from 6.13 before 6.15.8; 6.16-rc1, 6.16-rc2, 6.16-rc3, 6.16-rc4, 6.16-rc5, 6.16-rc6 — fixed in 6.12.40, 6.15.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.40, 6.15.8. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3859f137b3c1fa1f0031d54263234566bdcdd7aa
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4e7c46362550b229354aeb52038f414e231b0037
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/be5dcaed694e4255dc02dd0acfe036708c535def

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