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 — wifi: cfg80211: Add missing lock in cfg80211_check_and_end_cac()
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
L L L N U N N H 5.5 .0018 7.5 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
Linux 26ec17a1dc5ecdd8d91aba63ead6f8b5ad5dea0d – —
Linux 5.5 – 6.1.164
TIMELINE
Apr 16 Reserved by Linux
Aug 22 Published (CNA: Linux)
Jul 30 RESCORED — CVE-2025-38643 (Linux). CVSS 8.8 → 5.5 (NVD).
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: cfg80211: Add missing lock in cfg80211_check_and_end_cac()
Callers of wdev_chandef() must hold the wiphy mutex.
But the worker cfg80211_propagate_cac_done_wk() never takes the lock.
Which triggers the warning below with the mesh_peer_connected_dfs
test from hostapd and not (yet) released mac80211 code changes:
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 495 at net/wireless/chan.c:1552 wdev_chandef+0x60/0x165
Modules linked in:
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 495 Comm: kworker/u4:2 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc5-wt-g03960e6f9d47 #33 13c287eeabfe1efea01c0bcc863723ab082e17cf
Workqueue: cfg80211 cfg80211_propagate_cac_done_wk
Stack:
00000000 00000001 ffffff00 6093267c
00000000 6002ec30 6d577c50 60037608
00000000 67e8d108 6063717b 00000000
Call Trace:
[<6002ec30>] ? _printk+0x0/0x98
[<6003c2b3>] show_stack+0x10e/0x11a
[<6002ec30>] ? _printk+0x0/0x98
[<60037608>] dump_stack_lvl+0x71/0xb8
[<6063717b>] ? wdev_chandef+0x60/0x165
[<6003766d>] dump_stack+0x1e/0x20
[<6005d1b7>] __warn+0x101/0x20f
[<6005d3a8>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0xe3/0x15d
[<600b0c5c>] ? mark_lock.part.0+0x0/0x4ec
[<60751191>] ? __this_cpu_preempt_check+0x0/0x16
[<600b11a2>] ? mark_held_locks+0x5a/0x6e
[<6005d2c5>] ? warn_slowpath_fmt+0x0/0x15d
[<60052e53>] ? unblock_signals+0x3a/0xe7
[<60052f2d>] ? um_set_signals+0x2d/0x43
[<60751191>] ? __this_cpu_preempt_check+0x0/0x16
[<607508b2>] ? lock_is_held_type+0x207/0x21f
[<6063717b>] wdev_chandef+0x60/0x165
[<605f89b4>] regulatory_propagate_dfs_state+0x247/0x43f
[<60052f00>] ? um_set_signals+0x0/0x43
[<605e6bfd>] cfg80211_propagate_cac_done_wk+0x3a/0x4a
[<6007e460>] process_scheduled_works+0x3bc/0x60e
[<6007d0ec>] ? move_linked_works+0x4d/0x81
[<6007d120>] ? assign_work+0x0/0xaa
[<6007f81f>] worker_thread+0x220/0x2dc
[<600786ef>] ? set_pf_worker+0x0/0x57
[<60087c96>] ? to_kthread+0x0/0x43
[<6008ab3c>] kthread+0x2d3/0x2e2
[<6007f5ff>] ? worker_thread+0x0/0x2dc
[<6006c05b>] ? calculate_sigpending+0x0/0x56
[<6003b37d>] new_thread_handler+0x4a/0x64
irq event stamp: 614611
hardirqs last enabled at (614621): [<00000000600bc96b>] __up_console_sem+0x82/0xaf
hardirqs last disabled at (614630): [<00000000600bc92c>] __up_console_sem+0x43/0xaf
softirqs last enabled at (614268): [<00000000606c55c6>] __ieee80211_wake_queue+0x933/0x985
softirqs last disabled at (614266): [<00000000606c52d6>] __ieee80211_wake_queue+0x643/0x985
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
| April 16, 2025 | Reserved | Reserved by Linux |
| August 22, 2025 | Published | Published (CNA: Linux) |
| July 30, 2026 | RESCORED | RESCORED — CVE-2025-38643 (Linux). CVSS 8.8 → 5.5 (NVD). |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 2 rows
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
| Linux | Linux | — | 26ec17a1dc5ecdd8d91aba63ead6f8b5ad5dea0d | — |
| Linux | Linux | — | 5.5 | 6.1.164 |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2025-38643 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.