Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2 ntfs3 i_op null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability described as critical has been identified in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2. Affected by this issue is the function i_op of the component ntfs3. Such manipulation leads to null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2022-50739. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.86/6.0.16/6.1.2. Affected by this issue is the function i_op of the component ntfs3. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to 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. Impacted is availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs/ntfs3: Add null pointer check for inode operations This adds a sanity check for the i_op pointer of the inode which is returned after reading Root directory MFT record. We should check the i_op is valid before trying to create the root dentry, otherwise we may encounter a NPD while mounting a image with a funny Root directory MFT record. [ 114.484325] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000008 [ 114.484811] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode [ 114.485084] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page [ 114.485606] PGD 0 P4D 0 [ 114.485975] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI [ 114.486570] CPU: 0 PID: 237 Comm: mount Tainted: G B 6.0.0-rc4 #28 [ 114.486977] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 114.488169] RIP: 0010:d_flags_for_inode+0xe0/0x110 [ 114.488816] Code: 24 f7 ff 49 83 3e 00 74 41 41 83 cd 02 66 44 89 6b 02 eb 92 48 8d 7b 20 e8 6d 24 f7 ff 4c 8b 73 20 49 8d 7e 08 e8 60 241 [ 114.490326] RSP: 0018:ffff8880065e7aa8 EFLAGS: 00000296 [ 114.490695] RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: ffff888008ccd750 RCX: ffffffff84af2aea [ 114.490986] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000000000008 RDI: ffffffff87abd020 [ 114.491364] RBP: ffff8880065e7ac8 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: fffffbfff0f57a05 [ 114.491675] R10: ffffffff87abd027 R11: fffffbfff0f57a04 R12: 0000000000000000 [ 114.491954] R13: 0000000000000008 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff888008ccd750 [ 114.492397] FS: 00007fdc8a627e40(0000) GS:ffff888058200000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 114.492797] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 114.493150] CR2: 0000000000000008 CR3: 00000000013ba000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [ 114.493671] Call Trace: [ 114.493890] <TASK> [ 114.494075] __d_instantiate+0x24/0x1c0 [ 114.494505] d_instantiate.part.0+0x35/0x50 [ 114.494754] d_make_root+0x53/0x80 [ 114.494998] ntfs_fill_super+0x1232/0x1b50 [ 114.495260] ? put_ntfs+0x1d0/0x1d0 [ 114.495499] ? vsprintf+0x20/0x20 [ 114.495723] ? set_blocksize+0x95/0x150 [ 114.495964] get_tree_bdev+0x232/0x370 [ 114.496272] ? put_ntfs+0x1d0/0x1d0 [ 114.496502] ntfs_fs_get_tree+0x15/0x20 [ 114.496859] vfs_get_tree+0x4c/0x130 [ 114.497099] path_mount+0x654/0xfe0 [ 114.497507] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 114.497933] ? finish_automount+0x2e0/0x2e0 [ 114.498362] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 114.498571] ? kmem_cache_free+0x1c4/0x440 [ 114.498819] ? putname+0x80/0xa0 [ 114.499069] do_mount+0xd6/0xf0 [ 114.499343] ? path_mount+0xfe0/0xfe0 [ 114.499683] ? __kasan_check_write+0x14/0x20 [ 114.500133] __x64_sys_mount+0xca/0x110 [ 114.500592] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [ 114.500930] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 114.501294] RIP: 0033:0x7fdc898e948a [ 114.501542] 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 [ 114.502716] RSP: 002b:00007ffd793e58f8 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000a5 [ 114.503175] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000564b2228f060 RCX: 00007fdc898e948a [ 114.503588] RDX: 0000564b2228f260 RSI: 0000564b2228f2e0 RDI: 0000564b22297ce0 [ 114.504925] RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000564b2228f280 R09: 0000000000000020 [ 114.505484] R10: 00000000c0ed0000 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000564b22297ce0 [ 114.505823] R13: 0000564b2228f260 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 00000000ffffffff [ 114.506562] </TASK> [ 114.506887] Modules linked in: [ 114.507648] CR2: 0000000000000008 [ 114.508884] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [ 114.509675] RIP: 0010:d_flags_for_inode+0xe0/0x110 [ 114.510140] Code: 24 f7 ff 49 83 3e 00 74 41 41 83 cd 02 66 44 89 6b 02 eb 92 48 8d 7b 20 e8 6d 24 f7 ff 4c 8b 73 20 49 8d 7e 08 e8 60 241 [ 114.511762] RSP: 0018:ffff8880065e7aa8 EFLAGS: 00000296 [ 114.512401] RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: ffff888008ccd750 RCX: ffffffff84af2aea [ 114.51 ---truncated---

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2022-50739 since 12/24/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279751 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-50739), 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 f62506f5e45afbb01c84c3f28a2878b320a0b0f7/9f24743ddcdd3683b0a6b16e1439ad091dc3489b/a7b23037b38b577d9a4372e0c6b7c9fe808070c1/c1ca8ef0262b25493631ecbd9cb8c9893e1481a1 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 (279751) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2929). If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

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

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

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