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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2022-4696 json

There exists a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel through io_uring and the IORING_OP_SPLICE operation.

published 2023-01-11 3 y ago modified 2026-09-01 2 mo ago also EUVD-2022-52008

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 38%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There exists a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel through io_uring and the IORING_OP_SPLICE operation. If IORING_OP_SPLICE is missing the IO_WQ_WORK_FILES flag, which signals that the operation won't use current->nsproxy, so its reference counter is not increased. This assumption is not always true as calling io_splice on specific files will call the get_uts function which will use current->nsproxy leading to invalidly decreasing its reference counter later causing the use-after-free vulnerability. We recommend upgrading to version 5.10.160 or above

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 5.10.160, 5.12
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.14.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-4696

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-4696 updated cvss 7.8

kernel: user-after-free during IORING_OP_SPLICE operation

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.44% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 38% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • kernel.dance https://kernel.dance/#75454b4bbfc7e6a4dd8338556f36ea9107ddf61a referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux Kernel
  • linux linux_kernel

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-763 Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference
  • CWE-416 Use After Free
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.