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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2022-49888 json

arm64: entry: avoid kprobe recursion

published 2025-05-01 18 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-12882

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 16%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

arm64: entry: avoid kprobe recursion

The cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler() function is called when handling debug exceptions (and synchronous exceptions from BRK instructions), and so is called when a probed function executes. If the compiler does not inline cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler(), it can be probed.

If cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler() is probed, any debug exception or software breakpoint exception will result in recursive exceptions leading to a stack overflow. This can be triggered with the ftrace multiple_probes selftest, and as per the example splat below.

This is a regression caused by commit:

6459b8469753e9fe ("arm64: entry: consolidate Cortex-A76 erratum 1463225 workaround")

... which removed the NOKPROBE_SYMBOL() annotation associated with the function.

My intent was that cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler() would be inlined into its caller, el1_dbg(), which is marked noinstr and cannot be probed. Mark cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler() as __always_inline to ensure this.

Example splat prior to this patch (with recursive entries elided):

| # echo p cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events | # echo p do_el0_svc >> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events | # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/enable | Insufficient stack space to handle exception! | ESR: 0x0000000096000047 -- DABT (current EL) | FAR: 0xffff800009cefff0 | Task stack: [0xffff800009cf0000..0xffff800009cf4000] | IRQ stack: [0xffff800008000000..0xffff800008004000] | Overflow stack: [0xffff00007fbc00f0..0xffff00007fbc10f0] | CPU: 0 PID: 145 Comm: sh Not tainted 6.0.0 #2 | Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) | pstate: 604003c5 (nZCv DAIF +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) | pc : arm64_enter_el1_dbg+0x4/0x20 | lr : el1_dbg+0x24/0x5c | sp : ffff800009cf0000 | x29: ffff800009cf0000 x28: ffff000002c74740 x27: 0000000000000000 | x26: 0000000000000000 x25: 0000000000000000 x24: 0000000000000000 | x23: 00000000604003c5 x22: ffff80000801745c x21: 0000aaaac95ac068 | x20: 00000000f2000004 x19: ffff800009cf0040 x18: 0000000000000000 | x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: 0000000000000000 | x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000000000 x12: 0000000000000000 | x11: 0000000000000010 x10: ffff800008c87190 x9 : ffff800008ca00d0 | x8 : 000000000000003c x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 0000000000000000 | x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : 00000000000043a4 | x2 : 00000000f2000004 x1 : 00000000f2000004 x0 : ffff800009cf0040 | Kernel panic - not syncing: kernel stack overflow | CPU: 0 PID: 145 Comm: sh Not tainted 6.0.0 #2 | Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) | Call trace: | dump_backtrace+0xe4/0x104 | show_stack+0x18/0x4c | dump_stack_lvl+0x64/0x7c | dump_stack+0x18/0x38 | panic+0x14c/0x338 | test_taint+0x0/0x2c | panic_bad_stack+0x104/0x118 | handle_bad_stack+0x34/0x48 | __bad_stack+0x78/0x7c | arm64_enter_el1_dbg+0x4/0x20 | el1h_64_sync_handler+0x40/0x98 | el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 | cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler+0x0/0x34 ... | el1h_64_sync_handler+0x40/0x98 | el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 | cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler+0x0/0x34 ... | el1h_64_sync_handler+0x40/0x98 | el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 | cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler+0x0/0x34 | el1h_64_sync_handler+0x40/0x98 | el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 | do_el0_svc+0x0/0x28 | el0t_64_sync_handler+0x84/0xf0 | el0t_64_sync+0x18c/0x190 | Kernel Offset: disabled | CPU features: 0x0080,00005021,19001080 | Memory Limit: none | ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: kernel stack overflow ]---

With this patch, cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler() is inlined into el1_dbg(), and el1_dbg() cannot be probed:

| # echo p cortex_a76_erratum_1463225_debug_handler > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events | sh: write error: No such file or directory | # grep -w cortex_a76_errat ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.78, 6.0.8, 6.1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49888

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-60.66
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1030.34
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1029.36
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1027.32
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1025.28
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1028.33
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1033.40
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1015.19

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49888

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 SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +7 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, Manager Server 4.3 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +5 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1.150400.24.84.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.110.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02262-1SUSE-SU-2025:02173-1SUSE-SU-2025:01966-1SUSE-SU-2025:01918-1

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-2022-49888 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: arm64: entry: avoid kprobe recursion

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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 10 kernel
    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
partial
Assessed
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
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

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.