Linux Kernel up to 5.15.63/5.19.5 netfilter gc_step use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.63/5.19.5. Affected is the function gc_step of the component netfilter. The manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2022-50000. There is not any exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.63/5.19.5 and classified as critical. This issue affects the function gc_step of the component netfilter. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a use after free vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-416. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: flowtable: fix stuck flows on cleanup due to pending work To clear the flow table on flow table free, the following sequence normally happens in order: 1) gc_step work is stopped to disable any further stats/del requests. 2) All flow table entries are set to teardown state. 3) Run gc_step which will queue HW del work for each flow table entry. 4) Waiting for the above del work to finish (flush). 5) Run gc_step again, deleting all entries from the flow table. 6) Flow table is freed. But if a flow table entry already has pending HW stats or HW add work step 3 will not queue HW del work (it will be skipped), step 4 will wait for the pending add/stats to finish, and step 5 will queue HW del work which might execute after freeing of the flow table. To fix the above, this patch flushes the pending work, then it sets the teardown flag to all flows in the flowtable and it forces a garbage collector run to queue work to remove the flows from hardware, then it flushes this new pending work and (finally) it forces another garbage collector run to remove the entry from the software flowtable. Stack trace: [47773.882335] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in down_read+0x99/0x460 [47773.883634] Write of size 8 at addr ffff888103b45aa8 by task kworker/u20:6/543704 [47773.885634] CPU: 3 PID: 543704 Comm: kworker/u20:6 Not tainted 5.12.0-rc7+ #2 [47773.886745] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009) [47773.888438] Workqueue: nf_ft_offload_del flow_offload_work_handler [nf_flow_table] [47773.889727] Call Trace: [47773.890214] dump_stack+0xbb/0x107 [47773.890818] print_address_description.constprop.0+0x18/0x140 [47773.892990] kasan_report.cold+0x7c/0xd8 [47773.894459] kasan_check_range+0x145/0x1a0 [47773.895174] down_read+0x99/0x460 [47773.899706] nf_flow_offload_tuple+0x24f/0x3c0 [nf_flow_table] [47773.907137] flow_offload_work_handler+0x72d/0xbe0 [nf_flow_table] [47773.913372] process_one_work+0x8ac/0x14e0 [47773.921325] [47773.921325] Allocated by task 592159: [47773.922031] kasan_save_stack+0x1b/0x40 [47773.922730] __kasan_kmalloc+0x7a/0x90 [47773.923411] tcf_ct_flow_table_get+0x3cb/0x1230 [act_ct] [47773.924363] tcf_ct_init+0x71c/0x1156 [act_ct] [47773.925207] tcf_action_init_1+0x45b/0x700 [47773.925987] tcf_action_init+0x453/0x6b0 [47773.926692] tcf_exts_validate+0x3d0/0x600 [47773.927419] fl_change+0x757/0x4a51 [cls_flower] [47773.928227] tc_new_tfilter+0x89a/0x2070 [47773.936652] [47773.936652] Freed by task 543704: [47773.937303] kasan_save_stack+0x1b/0x40 [47773.938039] kasan_set_track+0x1c/0x30 [47773.938731] kasan_set_free_info+0x20/0x30 [47773.939467] __kasan_slab_free+0xe7/0x120 [47773.940194] slab_free_freelist_hook+0x86/0x190 [47773.941038] kfree+0xce/0x3a0 [47773.941644] tcf_ct_flow_table_cleanup_work Original patch description and stack trace by Paul Blakey.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2022-50000 since 06/18/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 11/30/2025).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 243421 (Amazon Linux 2 : kernel (ALASKERNEL-5.10-2025-098)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.15.64 or 5.19.6 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 8fbdec08dbf7d7ab8e35bdc65eb4394bc82d1e26/89e135a36a9eb81412b5459df94a80995ce62eef/9afb4b27349a499483ae0134282cefd0c90f480f 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 (243421) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-1350). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Dell Avamar
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway
• IBM QRadar SIEM

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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
• 5.15.45
• 5.15.46
• 5.15.47
• 5.15.48
• 5.15.49
• 5.15.50
• 5.15.51
• 5.15.52
• 5.15.53
• 5.15.54
• 5.15.55
• 5.15.56
• 5.15.57
• 5.15.58
• 5.15.59
• 5.15.60
• 5.15.61
• 5.15.62
• 5.15.63
• 5.19.0
• 5.19.1
• 5.19.2
• 5.19.3
• 5.19.4
• 5.19.5

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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