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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2022-50650 json

bpf: Fix reference state management for synchronous callbacks

published 2025-12-09 11 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2022-55706

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: Fix reference state management for synchronous callbacks

Currently, verifier verifies callback functions (sync and async) as if they will be executed once, (i.e. it explores execution state as if the function was being called once). The next insn to explore is set to start of subprog and the exit from nested frame is handled using curframe > 0 and prepare_func_exit. In case of async callback it uses a customized variant of push_stack simulating a kind of branch to set up custom state and execution context for the async callback.

While this approach is simple and works when callback really will be executed only once, it is unsafe for all of our current helpers which are for_each style, i.e. they execute the callback multiple times.

A callback releasing acquired references of the caller may do so multiple times, but currently verifier sees it as one call inside the frame, which then returns to caller. Hence, it thinks it released some reference that the cb e.g. got access through callback_ctx (register filled inside cb from spilled typed register on stack).

Similarly, it may see that an acquire call is unpaired inside the callback, so the caller will copy the reference state of callback and then will have to release the register with new ref_obj_ids. But again, the callback may execute multiple times, but the verifier will only account for acquired references for a single symbolic execution of the callback, which will cause leaks.

Note that for async callback case, things are different. While currently we have bpf_timer_set_callback which only executes it once, even for multiple executions it would be safe, as reference state is NULL and check_reference_leak would force program to release state before BPF_EXIT. The state is also unaffected by analysis for the caller frame. Hence async callback is safe.

Since we want the reference state to be accessible, e.g. for pointers loaded from stack through callback_ctx's PTR_TO_STACK, we still have to copy caller's reference_state to callback's bpf_func_state, but we enforce that whatever references it adds to that reference_state has been released before it hits BPF_EXIT. This requires introducing a new callback_ref member in the reference state to distinguish between caller vs callee references. Hence, check_reference_leak now errors out if it sees we are in callback_fn and we have not released callback_ref refs. Since there can be multiple nested callbacks, like frame 0 -> cb1 -> cb2 etc. we need to also distinguish between whether this particular ref belongs to this callback frame or parent, and only error for our own, so we store state->frameno (which is always non-zero for callbacks).

In short, callbacks can read parent reference_state, but cannot mutate it, to be able to use pointers acquired by the caller. They must only undo their changes (by releasing their own acquired_refs before BPF_EXIT) on top of caller reference_state before returning (at which point the caller and callback state will match anyway, so no need to copy it back to caller).

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.75, 5.19.17, 6.0.3, 6.1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50650

  • 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-2022-50650

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 RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.2.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:6583

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-2022-50650 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: bpf: Fix reference state management for synchronous callbacks

  • 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
    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
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

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

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.