Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2022-49350

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: mdio: unexport __init-annotated mdio_bus_init() EXPORT_SYMBOL and __init is a bad combination because the .init.text section is freed up after the initialization. Hence, modules cannot use symbols annotated __init. The access to a freed symbol may end up with kernel panic. modpost used to detect it, but it has been broken for a decade. Recently, I fixed modpost so it started to warn it again, then this showed up in linux-next builds. There are two ways to fix it: - Remove __init - Remove EXPORT_SYMBOL I chose the latter for this case because the only in-tree call-site, drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c is never compiled as modular. (CONFIG_PHYLIB is boolean)

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (18.8th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 19th percentile — 18.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2022-49350: held from 0.003 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 90eff9096c01ba90cdae504a6b95ee87fe2556a3, 4.12, 0
  • Linux Kernel — versions 5.19

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2022-49350?
CVE-2022-49350 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Use of Uninitialized Resource. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-02-26.
How severe is CVE-2022-49350?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.