What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-38609: PM / devfreq: Check governor before using governor->name

• 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: 2025-08-19 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: PM / devfreq: Check governor before using governor->name Commit 96ffcdf239de ("PM / devfreq: Remove redundant governor_name from struct devfreq") removes governor_name and uses governor->name to replace it. But devfreq->governor may be NULL and directly using devfreq->governor->name may cause null pointer exception. Move the check of governor to before using governor->name.

Affected products

• Debian Linux: 11.0
• Linux kernel: from 5.11 before 5.15.190; from 5.16 before 6.1.148; from 6.2 before 6.6.102; from 6.7 before 6.12.42; from 6.13 before 6.15.10; from 6.16 before 6.16.1 — fixed in 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.12.42, 6.15.10, 6.16.1, 6.6.102

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.190, 6.1.148, 6.12.42, 6.15.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2731c68f536fddcb71332db7f8d78c5eb4684c04
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/631e101728df2a86b8fb761b49fad9712c651f8a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/75323a49aa603cf5484a6d74d0d329e86d756e11
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/81f50619370045120c133bfdda5b320c8c97d41e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bab7834c03820eb11269bc48f07c3800192460d2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d5632359dbc44862fc1ed04093c1f57529830261
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f0479e878d4beb45e73c03e574c59f0a23ccd176
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html

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