CVE-2022-49568

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel < 5.4.210 - NULL Pointer Dereference in KVM Device Cleanup

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: Don't null dereference ops->destroy A KVM device cleanup happens in either of two callbacks: 1) destroy() which is called when the VM is being destroyed; 2) release() which is called when a device fd is closed. Most KVM devices use 1) but Book3s's interrupt controller KVM devices (XICS, XIVE, XIVE-native) use 2) as they need to close and reopen during the machine execution. The error handling in kvm_ioctl_create_device() assumes destroy() is always defined which leads to NULL dereference as discovered by Syzkaller. This adds a checks for destroy!=NULL and adds a missing release(). This is not changing kvm_destroy_devices() as devices with defined release() should have been removed from the KVM devices list by then.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0029
EPSS Percentile 20.2%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-476
Status published
Products (18)
linux/Kernel 3.10.0 - 5.4.210linux
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.58linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 5.18.15linux
linux/Kernel 5.5.0 - 5.10.134linux
Linux/Linux < 3.10
Linux/Linux 3.10
Linux/Linux 5.10.134 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.15.58 - 5.15.*
Linux/Linux 5.18.15 - 5.18.*
Linux/Linux 5.19
... and 8 more
Published Feb 26, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026