Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2 ntfs3 hdr_find_e use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2. It has been declared as critical. The affected element is the function hdr_find_e of the component ntfs3. Such manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2022-50737. There is not any exploit available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2 and classified as critical. Affected by this issue is the function hdr_find_e of the component ntfs3. 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. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs/ntfs3: Validate index root when initialize NTFS security This enhances the sanity check for $SDH and $SII while initializing NTFS security, guarantees these index root are legit. [ 162.459513] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in hdr_find_e.isra.0+0x10c/0x320 [ 162.460176] Read of size 2 at addr ffff8880037bca99 by task mount/243 [ 162.460851] [ 162.461252] CPU: 0 PID: 243 Comm: mount Not tainted 6.0.0-rc7 #42 [ 162.461744] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 162.462609] Call Trace: [ 162.462954] <TASK> [ 162.463276] dump_stack_lvl+0x49/0x63 [ 162.463822] print_report.cold+0xf5/0x689 [ 162.464608] ? unwind_get_return_address+0x3a/0x60 [ 162.465766] ? hdr_find_e.isra.0+0x10c/0x320 [ 162.466975] kasan_report+0xa7/0x130 [ 162.467506] ? _raw_spin_lock_irq+0xc0/0xf0 [ 162.467998] ? hdr_find_e.isra.0+0x10c/0x320 [ 162.468536] __asan_load2+0x68/0x90 [ 162.468923] hdr_find_e.isra.0+0x10c/0x320 [ 162.469282] ? cmp_uints+0xe0/0xe0 [ 162.469557] ? cmp_sdh+0x90/0x90 [ 162.469864] ? ni_find_attr+0x214/0x300 [ 162.470217] ? ni_load_mi+0x80/0x80 [ 162.470479] ? entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 162.470931] ? ntfs_bread_run+0x190/0x190 [ 162.471307] ? indx_get_root+0xe4/0x190 [ 162.471556] ? indx_get_root+0x140/0x190 [ 162.471833] ? indx_init+0x1e0/0x1e0 [ 162.472069] ? fnd_clear+0x115/0x140 [ 162.472363] ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x100/0x100 [ 162.472731] indx_find+0x184/0x470 [ 162.473461] ? sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x57/0xc0 [ 162.474429] ? indx_find_buffer+0x2d0/0x2d0 [ 162.474704] ? do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [ 162.474962] dir_search_u+0x196/0x2f0 [ 162.475381] ? ntfs_nls_to_utf16+0x450/0x450 [ 162.475661] ? ntfs_security_init+0x3d6/0x440 [ 162.475906] ? is_sd_valid+0x180/0x180 [ 162.476191] ntfs_extend_init+0x13f/0x2c0 [ 162.476496] ? ntfs_fix_post_read+0x130/0x130 [ 162.476861] ? iput.part.0+0x286/0x320 [ 162.477325] ntfs_fill_super+0x11e0/0x1b50 [ 162.477709] ? put_ntfs+0x1d0/0x1d0 [ 162.477970] ? vsprintf+0x20/0x20 [ 162.478258] ? set_blocksize+0x95/0x150 [ 162.478538] get_tree_bdev+0x232/0x370 [ 162.478789] ? put_ntfs+0x1d0/0x1d0 [ 162.479038] ntfs_fs_get_tree+0x15/0x20 [ 162.479374] vfs_get_tree+0x4c/0x130 [ 162.479729] path_mount+0x654/0xfe0 [ 162.480124] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 162.480484] ? finish_automount+0x2e0/0x2e0 [ 162.480894] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 162.481467] ? kmem_cache_free+0x1c4/0x440 [ 162.482280] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 162.482714] do_mount+0xd6/0xf0 [ 162.483264] ? path_mount+0xfe0/0xfe0 [ 162.484782] ? __kasan_check_write+0x14/0x20 [ 162.485593] __x64_sys_mount+0xca/0x110 [ 162.486024] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [ 162.486543] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 162.487141] RIP: 0033:0x7f9d374e948a [ 162.488324] Code: 48 8b 0d 11 fa 2a 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 83 c8 ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 49 89 ca b8 a5 00 00 008 [ 162.489728] RSP: 002b:00007ffe30e73d18 EFLAGS: 00000206 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000a5 [ 162.490971] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000561cdb43a060 RCX: 00007f9d374e948a [ 162.491669] RDX: 0000561cdb43a260 RSI: 0000561cdb43a2e0 RDI: 0000561cdb442af0 [ 162.492050] RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000561cdb43a280 R09: 0000000000000020 [ 162.492459] R10: 00000000c0ed0000 R11: 0000000000000206 R12: 0000561cdb442af0 [ 162.493183] R13: 0000561cdb43a260 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 00000000ffffffff [ 162.493644] </TASK> [ 162.493908] [ 162.494214] The buggy address belongs to the physical page: [ 162.494761] page:000000003e38a3d5 refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x37bc [ 162.496064] flags: 0xfffffc0000000(node=0|zone=1|lastcpupid=0x1fffff) [ 162.497278] raw: 000fffffc0000000 ffffea00000df1c8 ffffea00000df008 0000000000000000 [ 162.498928] raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000240000 0 ---truncated---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2022-50737 since 12/24/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 04/21/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279805 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-50737), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.15.87, 6.0.17 or 6.1.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch d7ce7bb6881aae186e50f57eea935cff8d504751/24ee53c6bce15500db22f2a7aee9dd830e806c90/d6379ce242960a8e9ecd6ff76f476d9336c21f16/bfcdbae0523bd95eb75a739ffb6221a37109881e 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 (279805) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2929). Once again VulDB remains the best 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

• 5.15.0
• 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
• 6.1.0
• 6.1.1
• 6.1.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

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