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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2022-49021 json

net: phy: fix null-ptr-deref while probe() failed

published 2024-10-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-53905

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 20%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: phy: fix null-ptr-deref while probe() failed

I got a null-ptr-deref report as following when doing fault injection test:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000058 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI CPU: 1 PID: 253 Comm: 507-spi-dm9051 Tainted: G B N 6.1.0-rc3+ Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.13.0-1ubuntu1.1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:klist_put+0x2d/0xd0 Call Trace: <TASK> klist_remove+0xf1/0x1c0 device_release_driver_internal+0x23e/0x2d0 bus_remove_device+0x1bd/0x240 device_del+0x357/0x770 phy_device_remove+0x11/0x30 mdiobus_unregister+0xa5/0x140 release_nodes+0x6a/0xa0 devres_release_all+0xf8/0x150 device_unbind_cleanup+0x19/0xd0

//probe path: phy_device_register() device_add()

phy_connect phy_attach_direct() //set device driver probe() //it's failed, driver is not bound device_bind_driver() // probe failed, it's not called

//remove path: phy_device_remove() device_del() device_release_driver_internal() __device_release_driver() //dev->drv is not NULL klist_remove() <- knode_driver is not added yet, cause null-ptr-deref

In phy_attach_direct(), after setting the 'dev->driver', probe() fails, device_bind_driver() is not called, so the knode_driver->n_klist is not set, then it causes null-ptr-deref in __device_release_driver() while deleting device. Fix this by setting dev->driver to NULL in the error path in phy_attach_direct().

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.9.335, 4.14.301, 4.19.268, 5.4.226, 5.10.158, 5.15.82, 6.0.12, 6.1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0.12-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49021

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-206.217
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-144.161
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-67.74
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1151.164
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1097.105
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1031.35
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1101.110
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1030.37

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49021

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-default SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1
  • kernel-default-base SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.55.88.1.150500.6.39.4
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.2, SLE Micro 5.1 5.3.18-150300.194.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:0034-1SUSE-SU-2024:4364-1SUSE-SU-2024:4317-1SUSE-SU-2024:4313-1SUSE-SU-2024:4131-1SUSE-SU-2024:4100-1

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-2022-49021 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: net: phy: fix null-ptr-deref while probe() failed

  • 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
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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, +82 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”

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
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
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.