---
id: CVE-2025-38674
title: 'Revert "drm/prime: Use dma_buf from GEM object instance"'
summary: |-
  In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

  Revert "drm/prime: Use dma_buf from GEM object instance"

  This reverts commit f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8.

  The dma_buf field in struct drm_gem_object is n…
severity: none
vendor: Linux
product: Linux
affected:
  - >-
    Linux >= f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8 <
    5f05d83ce689a8930a70dfa73f879604aef8cc03
  - >-
    Linux >= f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8 <
    fb4ef4a52b79a22ad382bfe77332642d02aef773
  - Linux 6.15
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: partial
  timestamp: '2026-11-05T21:06:44.203478Z'
published: '2025-08-22'
updated: '2026-11-05'
sourceUpdated: '2026-11-05T21:12:51.942Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38674'
references:
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f05d83ce689a8930a70dfa73f879604aef8cc03'
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb4ef4a52b79a22ad382bfe77332642d02aef773'
tags:
  - cve.org
epss: 0.00133
epssPercentile: 0.02862
ingestedAt: '2026-11-05T22:38:32.008Z'
---

## Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

Revert "drm/prime: Use dma_buf from GEM object instance"

This reverts commit f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8.

The dma_buf field in struct drm_gem_object is not stable over the
object instance's lifetime. The field becomes NULL when user space
releases the final GEM handle on the buffer object. This resulted
in a NULL-pointer deref.

Workarounds in commit 5307dce878d4 ("drm/gem: Acquire references on
GEM handles for framebuffers") and commit f6bfc9afc751 ("drm/framebuffer:
Acquire internal references on GEM handles") only solved the problem
partially. They especially don't work for buffer objects without a DRM
framebuffer associated.

Hence, this revert to going back to using .import_attach->dmabuf.

v3:
- cc stable

## Affected

- `Linux >= f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8 < 5f05d83ce689a8930a70dfa73f879604aef8cc03`
- `Linux >= f83a9b8c7fd0557b0c50784bfdc1bbe9140c9bf8 < fb4ef4a52b79a22ad382bfe77332642d02aef773`
- `Linux 6.15`

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.