CVE-2025-38248 is a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel network bridge multicast subsystem. Changes to per-VLAN multicast snooping and multicast router settings can reinsert ports into global or per-VLAN router-port lists despite the corresponding multicast context being disabled. Inconsistent cleanup then leaves stale entries after a bridge port or VLAN membership is deleted. Subsequent router-port list traversal, including while adding another router port, accesses freed memory. A diagnostic report identifies an eight-byte out-of-bounds write in br_multicast_add_router. The fix makes br_multicast_port_ctx_deinit() remove entries from the appropriate router-port list during context teardown.
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1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos.
Repository contains a single C proof-of-concept (poc.c) plus a minimal README claiming CVE-2025-38248 research. poc.c is a local Linux kernel trigger that: - Creates new user, mount, and network namespaces (unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER|CLONE_NEWNS|CLONE_NEWNET)) and maps the caller to uid/gid 0 inside the namespace via /proc/self/{setgroups,uid_map,gid_map}. - Uses raw rtnetlink (AF_NETLINK, NETLINK_ROUTE) to craft RTM_NEWLINK/RTM_DELLINK messages, emulating a subset of `ip link` operations. It creates a bridge (br1) with vlan_filtering and mcast_snooping enabled, creates a dummy interface (dummy1) enslaved to the bridge, toggles bridge_slave multicast router settings, enables bridge multi boolopt mcast_vlan_snooping, then deletes dummy1. - After deletion, it performs a heap spray by allocating 19 key objects using SYS_add_key("user", description, "data", 4, KEY_SPEC_SESSION_KEYRING) with a description padded to a chosen size (1024 bytes), likely to reclaim/fill freed kernel heap slots. - Finally, it creates a second dummy interface (dummy2) and applies bridge_slave settings again, presumably to re-trigger access to a freed/overwritten object. No network callbacks, C2, or remote endpoints are present; the only fingerprintable targets are local procfs paths and kernel interfaces (rtnetlink, keyrings). The code does not include privilege escalation primitives (no cred overwrite, no ROP, no shell), so it is best characterized as a kernel bug trigger + heap grooming PoC rather than a complete exploit.
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A use-after-free vulnerability in Linux kernel bridge multicast handling. Changes to multicast router configuration can leave stale entries in global or per-VLAN router port lists after port or VLAN deletion. Subsequent list traversal can access freed memory. The fix removes the port from the relevant router list in br_multicast_port_ctx_deinit(). The advisory assigns a CVSS v3 score of 7.8, with local access and low privileges required and potential high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Echo recommends updating linux and related packages to version 6.12.69-1 or later.
A Linux kernel use-after-free vulnerability in bridge multicast initialization via br_multicast_port_ctx_init.
A Linux kernel use-after-free vulnerability in bridge multicast handling within br_multicast_port_ctx_init.
A Linux kernel use-after-free vulnerability in bridge multicast handling in br_multicast_port_ctx_init.
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