Linux Kernel up to 5.10.123/5.15.44/5.17.12/5.18.1 length uninitialized pointer

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.123/5.15.44/5.17.12/5.18.1. The impacted element is an unknown function. The manipulation of the argument length leads to uninitialized pointer. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2022-49556. There is not any exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.123/5.15.44/5.17.12/5.18.1. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects an unknown code. The manipulation of the argument length with an unknown input leads to a uninitialized pointer vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-824. The product accesses or uses a pointer that has not been initialized. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: SVM: Use kzalloc for sev ioctl interfaces to prevent kernel data leak For some sev ioctl interfaces, the length parameter that is passed maybe less than or equal to SEV_FW_BLOB_MAX_SIZE, but larger than the data that PSP firmware returns. In this case, kmalloc will allocate memory that is the size of the input rather than the size of the data. Since PSP firmware doesn't fully overwrite the allocated buffer, these sev ioctl interface may return uninitialized kernel slab memory.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2022-49556 since 02/26/2025. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 01/23/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 226414 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-49556), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.124, 5.15.45, 5.17.13 or 5.18.2 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 401bef1f95de92c3a8c6eece46e02fa88d7285ee/d8fdb4b24097472ff6b3c0559448200d420b1418/bbdcc644b59e01e98c68894a9fab42b9687f42b0/57a01725339f9d82b099102ba2751621b1caab93/d22d2474e3953996f03528b84b7f52cc26a39403 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 databases at Tenable (226414) and EUVD (EUVD-2022-54676). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.123
• 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
• 5.15.27
• 5.15.28
• 5.15.29
• 5.15.30
• 5.15.31
• 5.15.32
• 5.15.33
• 5.15.34
• 5.15.35
• 5.15.36
• 5.15.37
• 5.15.38
• 5.15.39
• 5.15.40
• 5.15.41
• 5.15.42
• 5.15.43
• 5.15.44
• 5.17.0
• 5.17.1
• 5.17.2
• 5.17.3
• 5.17.4
• 5.17.5
• 5.17.6
• 5.17.7
• 5.17.8
• 5.17.9
• 5.17.10
• 5.17.11
• 5.17.12
• 5.18.0
• 5.18.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Exploitinginfo

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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