Linux Kernel up to 5.19.16/6.0.2 dmaengine device_prep_slave_sg denial of service

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.19.16/6.0.2. Affected by this vulnerability is the function device_prep_slave_sg of the component dmaengine. This manipulation causes denial of service. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2022-50721. No exploit is available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.19.16/6.0.2. It has been declared as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function device_prep_slave_sg of the component dmaengine. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a denial of service vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-404. The product does not release or incorrectly releases a resource before it is made available for re-use. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dmaengine: qcom-adm: fix wrong calling convention for prep_slave_sg The calling convention for pre_slave_sg is to return NULL on error and provide an error log to the system. Qcom-adm instead provide error pointer when an error occur. This indirectly cause kernel panic for example for the nandc driver that checks only if the pointer returned by device_prep_slave_sg is not NULL. Returning an error pointer makes nandc think the device_prep_slave_sg function correctly completed and makes the kernel panics later in the code. While nandc is the one that makes the kernel crash, it was pointed out that the real problem is qcom-adm not following calling convention for that function. To fix this, drop returning error pointer and return NULL with an error log.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2022-50721 since 12/24/2025. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279873 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-50721), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.19.17 or 6.0.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 5653bd0200944e5803fa8e32dc36aa49931312f9/9a041174c58a226e713f6cebd41eccec7a5cfa72/b9d2140c3badf4107973ad77c5a0ec3075705c85 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 (279873) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2929). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source 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

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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/

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