Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as critical has been detected in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.74/5.19.16/6.0.2. This affects the function arch_prepare_kprobe. This manipulation causes null pointer dereference. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2022-50635. There is no available exploit. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.74/5.19.16/6.0.2 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function arch_prepare_kprobe. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is 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. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/kprobes: Fix null pointer reference in arch_prepare_kprobe() I found a null pointer reference in arch_prepare_kprobe(): # echo 'p cmdline_proc_show' > kprobe_events # echo 'p cmdline_proc_show+16' >> kprobe_events Kernel attempted to read user page (0) - exploit attempt? (uid: 0) BUG: Kernel NULL pointer dereference on read at 0x00000000 Faulting instruction address: 0xc000000000050bfc Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Radix SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA PowerNV Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 122 Comm: sh Not tainted 6.0.0-rc3-00007-gdcf8e5633e2e #10 NIP: c000000000050bfc LR: c000000000050bec CTR: 0000000000005bdc REGS: c0000000348475b0 TRAP: 0300 Not tainted (6.0.0-rc3-00007-gdcf8e5633e2e) MSR: 9000000000009033 <SF,HV,EE,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 88002444 XER: 20040006 CFAR: c00000000022d100 DAR: 0000000000000000 DSISR: 40000000 IRQMASK: 0 ... NIP arch_prepare_kprobe+0x10c/0x2d0 LR arch_prepare_kprobe+0xfc/0x2d0 Call Trace: 0xc0000000012f77a0 (unreliable) register_kprobe+0x3c0/0x7a0 __register_trace_kprobe+0x140/0x1a0 __trace_kprobe_create+0x794/0x1040 trace_probe_create+0xc4/0xe0 create_or_delete_trace_kprobe+0x2c/0x80 trace_parse_run_command+0xf0/0x210 probes_write+0x20/0x40 vfs_write+0xfc/0x450 ksys_write+0x84/0x140 system_call_exception+0x17c/0x3a0 system_call_vectored_common+0xe8/0x278 --- interrupt: 3000 at 0x7fffa5682de0 NIP: 00007fffa5682de0 LR: 0000000000000000 CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c000000034847e80 TRAP: 3000 Not tainted (6.0.0-rc3-00007-gdcf8e5633e2e) MSR: 900000000280f033 <SF,HV,VEC,VSX,EE,PR,FP,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 44002408 XER: 00000000 The address being probed has some special: cmdline_proc_show: Probe based on ftrace cmdline_proc_show+16: Probe for the next instruction at the ftrace location The ftrace-based kprobe does not generate kprobe::ainsn::insn, it gets set to NULL. In arch_prepare_kprobe() it will check for: ... prev = get_kprobe(p->addr - 1); preempt_enable_no_resched(); if (prev && ppc_inst_prefixed(ppc_inst_read(prev->ainsn.insn))) { ... If prev is based on ftrace, 'ppc_inst_read(prev->ainsn.insn)' will occur with a null pointer reference. At this point prev->addr will not be a prefixed instruction, so the check can be skipped. Check if prev is ftrace-based kprobe before reading 'prev->ainsn.insn' to fix this problem. [mpe: Trim oops]

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2022-50635 since 12/09/2025. The exploitation appears to be difficult. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 302727 (EulerOS 2.0 SP11 : kernel (EulerOS-SA-2026-1582)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.15.75, 5.19.17 or 6.0.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 7f536a8cb62dd5c084f112373fc34cdb5168a813/4eac4f6a86ae73ef4b772d37398beeba2fbfde4e/5fd1b369387c53ee6c774ab86e32e362a1e537ac/97f88a3d723162781d6cbfdc7b9617eefab55b19 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 (302727) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2765). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best 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

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
• 5.15.64
• 5.15.65
• 5.15.66
• 5.15.67
• 5.15.68
• 5.15.69
• 5.15.70
• 5.15.71
• 5.15.72
• 5.15.73
• 5.15.74
• 5.19.0
• 5.19.1
• 5.19.2
• 5.19.3
• 5.19.4
• 5.19.5
• 5.19.6
• 5.19.7
• 5.19.8
• 5.19.9
• 5.19.10
• 5.19.11
• 5.19.12
• 5.19.13
• 5.19.14
• 5.19.15
• 5.19.16
• 6.0.0
• 6.0.1
• 6.0.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

Discussion