boxscore/security
CVE · referencelatest edition

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.

CVE-2025-38512HIGH
Linux Linux — wifi: prevent A-MSDU attacks in mesh networks
  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   L   L   N  U  H  H  H    7.8   .0022   13.0     —
AFFECTED
  Product  Versions                                    Fixed
  Linux    79720743421753ff72bfa0d79976c534645b81c1 –  —
  Linux    6.3 –                                       6.1.146
TIMELINE
  Apr 16  Reserved by Linux
  Aug 16  Published (CNA: Linux)
  Jul 30  RESCORED — CVE-2025-38512 (Linux). CVSS 8.8 → 7.8 (NVD).
CNA: Linux · CVSS v3.1 · 6 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: prevent A-MSDU attacks in mesh networks This patch is a mitigation to prevent the A-MSDU spoofing vulnerability for mesh networks. The initial update to the IEEE 802.11 standard, in response to the FragAttacks, missed this case (CVE-2025-27558). It can be considered a variant of CVE-2020-24588 but for mesh networks. This patch tries to detect if a standard MSDU was turned into an A-MSDU by an adversary. This is done by parsing a received A-MSDU as a standard MSDU, calculating the length of the Mesh Control header, and seeing if the 6 bytes after this header equal the start of an rfc1042 header. If equal, this is a strong indication of an ongoing attack attempt. This defense was tested with mac80211_hwsim against a mesh network that uses an empty Mesh Address Extension field, i.e., when four addresses are used, and when using a 12-byte Mesh Address Extension field, i.e., when six addresses are used. Functionality of normal MSDUs and A-MSDUs was also tested, and confirmed working, when using both an empty and 12-byte Mesh Address Extension field. It was also tested with mac80211_hwsim that A-MSDU attacks in non-mesh networks keep being detected and prevented. Note that the vulnerability being patched, and the defense being implemented, was also discussed in the following paper and in the following IEEE 802.11 presentation: https://papers.mathyvanhoef.com/wisec2025.pdf https://mentor.ieee.org/802.11/dcn/25/11-25-0949-00-000m-a-msdu-mesh-spoof-protection.docx

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
DateEventDetail
April 16, 2025ReservedReserved by Linux
August 16, 2025PublishedPublished (CNA: Linux)
July 30, 2026RESCOREDRESCORED — CVE-2025-38512 (Linux). CVSS 8.8 → 7.8 (NVD).

Affected

Affected products and packages — 2 rows
VendorProduct / PackageEcosystemVersion introducedFixed
LinuxLinux79720743421753ff72bfa0d79976c534645b81c1
LinuxLinux6.36.1.146

References (6)

Related

Authoritative record: CVE-2025-38512 at cve.org

Vendors: linux

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2025-38512 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.