CVE-2025-37945 : Detail

CVE-2025-37945

5.5
/
Medium
Memory Corruption
0.07%V4
Local
2025-05-20
15h58 +00:00
2026-07-14
12h41 +00:00
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CVE Descriptions

net: phy: allow MDIO bus PM ops to start/stop state machine for phylink-controlled PHY

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: phy: allow MDIO bus PM ops to start/stop state machine for phylink-controlled PHY DSA has 2 kinds of drivers: 1. Those who call dsa_switch_suspend() and dsa_switch_resume() from their device PM ops: qca8k-8xxx, bcm_sf2, microchip ksz 2. Those who don't: all others. The above methods should be optional. For type 1, dsa_switch_suspend() calls dsa_user_suspend() -> phylink_stop(), and dsa_switch_resume() calls dsa_user_resume() -> phylink_start(). These seem good candidates for setting mac_managed_pm = true because that is essentially its definition [1], but that does not seem to be the biggest problem for now, and is not what this change focuses on. Talking strictly about the 2nd category of DSA drivers here (which do not have MAC managed PM, meaning that for their attached PHYs, mdio_bus_phy_suspend() and mdio_bus_phy_resume() should run in full), I have noticed that the following warning from mdio_bus_phy_resume() is triggered: WARN_ON(phydev->state != PHY_HALTED && phydev->state != PHY_READY && phydev->state != PHY_UP); because the PHY state machine is running. It's running as a result of a previous dsa_user_open() -> ... -> phylink_start() -> phy_start() having been initiated by the user. The previous mdio_bus_phy_suspend() was supposed to have called phy_stop_machine(), but it didn't. So this is why the PHY is in state PHY_NOLINK by the time mdio_bus_phy_resume() runs. mdio_bus_phy_suspend() did not call phy_stop_machine() because for phylink, the phydev->adjust_link function pointer is NULL. This seems a technicality introduced by commit fddd91016d16 ("phylib: fix PAL state machine restart on resume"). That commit was written before phylink existed, and was intended to avoid crashing with consumer drivers which don't use the PHY state machine - phylink always does, when using a PHY. But phylink itself has historically not been developed with suspend/resume in mind, and apparently not tested too much in that scenario, allowing this bug to exist unnoticed for so long. Plus, prior to the WARN_ON(), it would have likely been invisible. This issue is not in fact restricted to type 2 DSA drivers (according to the above ad-hoc classification), but can be extrapolated to any MAC driver with phylink and MDIO-bus-managed PHY PM ops. DSA is just where the issue was reported. Assuming mac_managed_pm is set correctly, a quick search indicates the following other drivers might be affected: $ grep -Zlr PHYLINK_NETDEV drivers/ | xargs -0 grep -L mac_managed_pm drivers/net/ethernet/atheros/ag71xx.c drivers/net/ethernet/microchip/sparx5/sparx5_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/microchip/lan966x/lan966x_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/dpaa2/dpaa2-mac.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/fs_enet/fs_enet-main.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/dpaa/dpaa_eth.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/ucc_geth.c drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/enetc/enetc_pf_common.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/mvpp2/mvpp2_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/mvneta.c drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/prestera/prestera_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/mediatek/mtk_eth_soc.c drivers/net/ethernet/altera/altera_tse_main.c drivers/net/ethernet/wangxun/txgbe/txgbe_phy.c drivers/net/ethernet/meta/fbnic/fbnic_phylink.c drivers/net/ethernet/tehuti/tn40_phy.c drivers/net/ethernet/mscc/ocelot_net.c Make the existing conditions dependent on the PHY device having a phydev->phy_link_change() implementation equal to the default phy_link_change() provided by phylib. Otherwise, we implicitly know that the phydev has the phylink-provided phylink_phy_change() callback, and when phylink is used, the PHY state machine always needs to be stopped/ started on the suspend/resume path. The code is structured as such that if phydev->phy_link_change() is absent, it is a matter of time until the kernel will crash - no need to further complicate the test. Thus, for the situation where the PM is not managed b ---truncated---

CVE Informations

Related Weaknesses

CWE-ID Weakness Name Source
CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.

Metrics

Metrics Score Severity CVSS Vector Source
V3.1 5.5 MEDIUM CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Base: Exploitabilty Metrics

The Exploitability metrics reflect the characteristics of the thing that is vulnerable, which we refer to formally as the vulnerable component.

Attack Vector

This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible.

Local

The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities.

Attack Complexity

This metric describes the conditions beyond the attacker’s control that must exist in order to exploit the vulnerability.

Low

Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success when attacking the vulnerable component.

Privileges Required

This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess before successfully exploiting the vulnerability.

Low

The attacker requires privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges has the ability to access only non-sensitive resources.

User Interaction

This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable component.

None

The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any user.

Base: Scope Metrics

The Scope metric captures whether a vulnerability in one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.

Scope

Formally, a security authority is a mechanism (e.g., an application, an operating system, firmware, a sandbox environment) that defines and enforces access control in terms of how certain subjects/actors (e.g., human users, processes) can access certain restricted objects/resources (e.g., files, CPU, memory) in a controlled manner. All the subjects and objects under the jurisdiction of a single security authority are considered to be under one security scope. If a vulnerability in a vulnerable component can affect a component which is in a different security scope than the vulnerable component, a Scope change occurs. Intuitively, whenever the impact of a vulnerability breaches a security/trust boundary and impacts components outside the security scope in which vulnerable component resides, a Scope change occurs.

Unchanged

An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.

Base: Impact Metrics

The Impact metrics capture the effects of a successfully exploited vulnerability on the component that suffers the worst outcome that is most directly and predictably associated with the attack. Analysts should constrain impacts to a reasonable, final outcome which they are confident an attacker is able to achieve.

Confidentiality Impact

This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information resources managed by a software component due to a successfully exploited vulnerability.

None

There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.

Integrity Impact

This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information.

None

There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.

Availability Impact

This metric measures the impact to the availability of the impacted component resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability.

High

There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Temporal Metrics

The Temporal metrics measure the current state of exploit techniques or code availability, the existence of any patches or workarounds, or the confidence in the description of a vulnerability.

Environmental Metrics

These metrics enable the analyst to customize the CVSS score depending on the importance of the affected IT asset to a user’s organization, measured in terms of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

nvd@nist.gov

EPSS

EPSS is a scoring model that predicts the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited.

EPSS Score

The EPSS model produces a probability score between 0 and 1 (0 and 100%). The higher the score, the greater the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited.

EPSS Percentile

The percentile is used to rank CVE according to their EPSS score. For example, a CVE in the 95th percentile according to its EPSS score is more likely to be exploited than 95% of other CVE. Thus, the percentile is used to compare the EPSS score of a CVE with that of other CVE.

Products Mentioned

Configuraton 0

Linux>>Linux_kernel >> Version From (including) 5.15.63 To (excluding) 5.16

Linux>>Linux_kernel >> Version From (including) 5.19.4 To (excluding) 6.12.24

Linux>>Linux_kernel >> Version From (including) 6.13 To (excluding) 6.13.12

Linux>>Linux_kernel >> Version From (including) 6.14 To (excluding) 6.14.3

Linux>>Linux_kernel >> Version 6.15

References