Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2022-50159
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: of: check previous kernel's ima-kexec-buffer against memory bounds Presently ima_get_kexec_buffer() doesn't check if the previous kernel's ima-kexec-buffer lies outside the addressable memory range. This can result in a kernel panic if the new kernel is booted with 'mem=X' arg and the ima-kexec-buffer was allocated beyond that range by the previous kernel. The panic is usually of the form below: $ sudo kexec --initrd initrd vmlinux --append='mem=16G' <snip> BUG: Unable to handle kernel data access on read at 0xc000c01fff7f0000 Faulting instruction address: 0xc000000000837974 Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] <snip> NIP [c000000000837974] ima_restore_measurement_list+0x94/0x6c0 LR [c00000000083b55c] ima_load_kexec_buffer+0xac/0x160 Call Trace: [c00000000371fa80] [c00000000083b55c] ima_load_kexec_buffer+0xac/0x160 [c00000000371fb00] [c0000000020512c4] ima_init+0x80/0x108 [c00000000371fb70] [c0000000020514dc] init_ima+0x4c/0x120 [c00000000371fbf0] [c000000000012240] do_one_initcall+0x60/0x2c0 [c00000000371fcc0] [c000000002004ad0] kernel_init_freeable+0x344/0x3ec [c00000000371fda0] [c0000000000128a4] kernel_init+0x34/0x1b0 [c00000000371fe10] [c00000000000ce64] ret_from_kernel_thread+0x5c/0x64 Instruction dump: f92100b8 f92100c0 90e10090 910100a0 4182050c 282a0017 3bc00000 40810330 7c0802a6 fb610198 7c9b2378 f80101d0 <a1240000> 2c090001 40820614 e9240010 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- Fix this issue by checking returned PFN range of previous kernel's ima-kexec-buffer with page_is_ram() to ensure correct memory bounds.
EPSS: 0.002 (5.6th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
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.
Affected products
- Linux — versions 467d27824920e866af148132f555d40ca1fb199e, 4.10, 0
- Linux Linux_kernel
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2022-50159?
- CVE-2022-50159 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-06-18.
- How severe is CVE-2022-50159?
- Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.