CVE-2025-38512

7.8 HIGH
Published: August 16, 2025 Modified: January 07, 2026

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

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CVSS v3.x Details

0.0 Low Medium High Critical 10.0
Vector String
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

Patch Vendor Advisory Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6e3b09402cc6c3e3474fa548e8adf6897dda05de
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/737bb912ebbe4571195c56eba557c4d7315b26fb
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e01851f6e9a665a6011b14714b271d3e6b0b8d32
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e2c8a3c0388aef6bfc4aabfba07bc7dff16eea80
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ec6392061de6681148b63ee6c8744da833498cdd
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Patch
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html
Source: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
Third Party Advisory Mailing List

6 reference(s) from NVD

Quick Stats

CVSS v3 Score
7.8 / 10.0
EPSS (Exploit Probability)
0.0%
5th percentile
Exploitation Status
Not in CISA KEV

Affected Vendors

debian linux