Linux Kernel up to 5.10.162/5.15.86/6.0.17/6.1.3 ext4 fs/ext4/inode.c ext4_evict_inode use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.162/5.15.86/6.0.17/6.1.3. Affected is the function ext4_evict_inode of the file fs/ext4/inode.c of the component ext4. The manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2022-50730. No exploit is available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.162/5.15.86/6.0.17/6.1.3. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function ext4_evict_inode of the file fs/ext4/inode.c of the component ext4. 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: ext4: silence the warning when evicting inode with dioread_nolock When evicting an inode with default dioread_nolock, it could be raced by the unwritten extents converting kworker after writeback some new allocated dirty blocks. It convert unwritten extents to written, the extents could be merged to upper level and free extent blocks, so it could mark the inode dirty again even this inode has been marked I_FREEING. But the inode->i_io_list check and warning in ext4_evict_inode() missing this corner case. Fortunately, ext4_evict_inode() will wait all extents converting finished before this check, so it will not lead to inode use-after-free problem, every thing is OK besides this warning. The WARN_ON_ONCE was originally designed for finding inode use-after-free issues in advance, but if we add current dioread_nolock case in, it will become not quite useful, so fix this warning by just remove this check. ====== WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 1092 at fs/ext4/inode.c:227 ext4_evict_inode+0x875/0xc60 ... RIP: 0010:ext4_evict_inode+0x875/0xc60 ... Call Trace: <TASK> evict+0x11c/0x2b0 iput+0x236/0x3a0 do_unlinkat+0x1b4/0x490 __x64_sys_unlinkat+0x4c/0xb0 do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 RIP: 0033:0x7fa933c1115b ====== rm kworker ext4_end_io_end() vfs_unlink() ext4_unlink() ext4_convert_unwritten_io_end_vec() ext4_convert_unwritten_extents() ext4_map_blocks() ext4_ext_map_blocks() ext4_ext_try_to_merge_up() __mark_inode_dirty() check !I_FREEING locked_inode_to_wb_and_lock_list() iput() iput_final() evict() ext4_evict_inode() truncate_inode_pages_final() //wait release io_end inode_io_list_move_locked() ext4_release_io_end() trigger WARN_ON_ONCE()

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2022-50730 since 12/24/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. 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 04/21/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279929 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-50730), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.163, 5.15.87, 6.0.18 or 6.1.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch bdc698ce91f232fd5eb11d2373e9f82f687314b8/0d041b7251c13679a0f6c7926751ce1d8a7237c1/3b893cc9a8d8b4e486a6639f5e107b56b7197d2e/b085fb43feede48ebf80ab7e2dd150c8d9902932/bc12ac98ea2e1b70adc6478c8b473a0003b659d3 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 (279929) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2929). 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

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.162
• 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
• 5.15.75
• 5.15.76
• 5.15.77
• 5.15.78
• 5.15.79
• 5.15.80
• 5.15.81
• 5.15.82
• 5.15.83
• 5.15.84
• 5.15.85
• 5.15.86
• 6.0.0
• 6.0.1
• 6.0.2
• 6.0.3
• 6.0.4
• 6.0.5
• 6.0.6
• 6.0.7
• 6.0.8
• 6.0.9
• 6.0.10
• 6.0.11
• 6.0.12
• 6.0.13
• 6.0.14
• 6.0.15
• 6.0.16
• 6.0.17
• 6.1.0
• 6.1.1
• 6.1.2
• 6.1.3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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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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