Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2022-49873

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix wrong reg type conversion in release_reference() Some helper functions will allocate memory. To avoid memory leaks, the verifier requires the eBPF program to release these memories by calling the corresponding helper functions. When a resource is released, all pointer registers corresponding to the resource should be invalidated. The verifier use release_references() to do this job, by apply __mark_reg_unknown() to each relevant register. It will give these registers the type of SCALAR_VALUE. A register that will contain a pointer value at runtime, but of type SCALAR_VALUE, which may allow the unprivileged user to get a kernel pointer by storing this register into a map. Using __mark_reg_not_init() while NOT allow_ptr_leaks can mitigate this problem.

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: 0.002 (10.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 11th percentile — 10.7% 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-2022-49873: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions fd978bf7fd312581a7ca454a991f0ffb34c4204b, 4.20, 0
  • Linux Kernel — versions 6.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2022-49873?
CVE-2022-49873 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Incorrect Type Conversion or Cast. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-05-01.
How severe is CVE-2022-49873?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.