Reference page — cumulative record through Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
Linux Linux — drm/gem: Acquire references on GEM handles for framebuffers
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
L L L N U N N H 5.5 .0016 5.6 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
Linux 319c933c71f3dbdb2b3274d1634d3494c70efa06 – —
Linux 3.12 – 6.6.99
TIMELINE
Apr 16 Reserved by Linux
Jul 25 Published (CNA: Linux)
Jul 30 RESCORED — CVE-2025-38449 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD).
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
drm/gem: Acquire references on GEM handles for framebuffers
A GEM handle can be released while the GEM buffer object is attached
to a DRM framebuffer. This leads to the release of the dma-buf backing
the buffer object, if any. [1] Trying to use the framebuffer in further
mode-setting operations leads to a segmentation fault. Most easily
happens with driver that use shadow planes for vmap-ing the dma-buf
during a page flip. An example is shown below.
[ 156.791968] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 156.796830] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 2255 at drivers/dma-buf/dma-buf.c:1527 dma_buf_vmap+0x224/0x430
[...]
[ 156.942028] RIP: 0010:dma_buf_vmap+0x224/0x430
[ 157.043420] Call Trace:
[ 157.045898] <TASK>
[ 157.048030] ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1af/0x2c0
[ 157.052436] ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1af/0x2c0
[ 157.056836] ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1af/0x2c0
[ 157.061253] ? drm_gem_shmem_vmap+0x74/0x710
[ 157.065567] ? dma_buf_vmap+0x224/0x430
[ 157.069446] ? __warn.cold+0x58/0xe4
[ 157.073061] ? dma_buf_vmap+0x224/0x430
[ 157.077111] ? report_bug+0x1dd/0x390
[ 157.080842] ? handle_bug+0x5e/0xa0
[ 157.084389] ? exc_invalid_op+0x14/0x50
[ 157.088291] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20
[ 157.092548] ? dma_buf_vmap+0x224/0x430
[ 157.096663] ? dma_resv_get_singleton+0x6d/0x230
[ 157.101341] ? __pfx_dma_buf_vmap+0x10/0x10
[ 157.105588] ? __pfx_dma_resv_get_singleton+0x10/0x10
[ 157.110697] drm_gem_shmem_vmap+0x74/0x710
[ 157.114866] drm_gem_vmap+0xa9/0x1b0
[ 157.118763] drm_gem_vmap_unlocked+0x46/0xa0
[ 157.123086] drm_gem_fb_vmap+0xab/0x300
[ 157.126979] drm_atomic_helper_prepare_planes.part.0+0x487/0xb10
[ 157.133032] ? lockdep_init_map_type+0x19d/0x880
[ 157.137701] drm_atomic_helper_commit+0x13d/0x2e0
[ 157.142671] ? drm_atomic_nonblocking_commit+0xa0/0x180
[ 157.147988] drm_mode_atomic_ioctl+0x766/0xe40
[...]
[ 157.346424] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
Acquiring GEM handles for the framebuffer's GEM buffer objects prevents
this from happening. The framebuffer's cleanup later puts the handle
references.
Commit 1a148af06000 ("drm/gem-shmem: Use dma_buf from GEM object
instance") triggers the segmentation fault easily by using the dma-buf
field more widely. The underlying issue with reference counting has
been present before.
v2:
- acquire the handle instead of the BO (Christian)
- fix comment style (Christian)
- drop the Fixes tag (Christian)
- rename err_ gotos
- add missing Link tag
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
| April 16, 2025 | Reserved | Reserved by Linux |
| July 25, 2025 | Published | Published (CNA: Linux) |
| July 30, 2026 | RESCORED | RESCORED — CVE-2025-38449 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD). |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 2 rows
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
| Linux | Linux | — | 319c933c71f3dbdb2b3274d1634d3494c70efa06 | — |
| Linux | Linux | — | 3.12 | 6.6.99 |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2025-38449 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.