Linux Kernel up to 5.10.136/5.15.26/5.16.12 sched_fork null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.136/5.15.26/5.16.12. Affected by this vulnerability is the function sched_fork. Performing a manipulation results in null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2022-48921. No exploit exists. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.136/5.15.26/5.16.12. This affects the function sched_fork. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Fix fault in reweight_entity Syzbot found a GPF in reweight_entity. This has been bisected to commit 4ef0c5c6b5ba ("kernel/sched: Fix sched_fork() access an invalid sched_task_group") There is a race between sched_post_fork() and setpriority(PRIO_PGRP) within a thread group that causes a null-ptr-deref in reweight_entity() in CFS. The scenario is that the main process spawns number of new threads, which then call setpriority(PRIO_PGRP, 0, -20), wait, and exit. For each of the new threads the copy_process() gets invoked, which adds the new task_struct and calls sched_post_fork() for it. In the above scenario there is a possibility that setpriority(PRIO_PGRP) and set_one_prio() will be called for a thread in the group that is just being created by copy_process(), and for which the sched_post_fork() has not been executed yet. This will trigger a null pointer dereference in reweight_entity(), as it will try to access the run queue pointer, which hasn't been set. Before the mentioned change the cfs_rq pointer for the task has been set in sched_fork(), which is called much earlier in copy_process(), before the new task is added to the thread_group. Now it is done in the sched_post_fork(), which is called after that. To fix the issue the remove the update_load param from the update_load param() function and call reweight_task() only if the task flag doesn't have the TASK_NEW flag set.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2022-48921 since 08/21/2024. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 216030 (EulerOS 2.0 SP12 : kernel (EulerOS-SA-2025-1176)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.137, 5.15.27 or 5.16.13 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 8f317cd88805/e0bcd6b57793/589a954daab5/13765de8148f is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (216030). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.136
• 5.15.0
• 5.15.1
• 5.15.2
• 5.15.3
• 5.15.4
• 5.15.5
• 5.15.6
• 5.15.7
• 5.15.8
• 5.15.9
• 5.15.10
• 5.15.11
• 5.15.12
• 5.15.13
• 5.15.14
• 5.15.15
• 5.15.16
• 5.15.17
• 5.15.18
• 5.15.19
• 5.15.20
• 5.15.21
• 5.15.22
• 5.15.23
• 5.15.24
• 5.15.25
• 5.15.26
• 5.16.0
• 5.16.1
• 5.16.2
• 5.16.3
• 5.16.4
• 5.16.5
• 5.16.6
• 5.16.7
• 5.16.8
• 5.16.9
• 5.16.10
• 5.16.11
• 5.16.12

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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