CVE-2025-38512

Published Aug 16, 2025

Last updated 4 months ago

CVSS high 7.8

Overview

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
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
linux_kernel, debian_linux

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
7.8
Impact score
5.9
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity
HIGH

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
NVD-CWE-noinfo

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

  1. CVE-2025-38512 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 s… https://t.co/hMXbAZalmx

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    16 Aug 2025

    320 Impressions

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Configurations

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References

Sources include official advisories and independent security research.