{
  "threat_severity" : "Moderate",
  "public_date" : "2025-02-26T00:00:00Z",
  "bugzilla" : {
    "description" : "kernel: exec: Force single empty string when argv is empty",
    "id" : "2347695",
    "url" : "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2347695"
  },
  "cvss3" : {
    "cvss3_base_score" : "5.5",
    "cvss3_scoring_vector" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
    "status" : "verified"
  },
  "details" : [ "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\nexec: Force single empty string when argv is empty\nQuoting[1] Ariadne Conill:\n\"In several other operating systems, it is a hard requirement that the\nsecond argument to execve(2) be the name of a program, thus prohibiting\na scenario where argc < 1. POSIX 2017 also recommends this behaviour,\nbut it is not an explicit requirement[2]:\nThe argument arg0 should point to a filename string that is\nassociated with the process being started by one of the exec\nfunctions.\n...\nInterestingly, Michael Kerrisk opened an issue about this in 2008[3],\nbut there was no consensus to support fixing this issue then.\nHopefully now that CVE-2021-4034 shows practical exploitative use[4]\nof this bug in a shellcode, we can reconsider.\nThis issue is being tracked in the KSPP issue tracker[5].\"\nWhile the initial code searches[6][7] turned up what appeared to be\nmostly corner case tests, trying to that just reject argv == NULL\n(or an immediately terminated pointer list) quickly started tripping[8]\nexisting userspace programs.\nThe next best approach is forcing a single empty string into argv and\nadjusting argc to match. The number of programs depending on argc == 0\nseems a smaller set than those calling execve with a NULL argv.\nAccount for the additional stack space in bprm_stack_limits(). Inject an\nempty string when argc == 0 (and set argc = 1). Warn about the case so\nuserspace has some notice about the change:\nprocess './argc0' launched './argc0' with NULL argv: empty string added\nAdditionally WARN() and reject NULL argv usage for kernel threads.\n[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220127000724.15106-1-ariadne@dereferenced.org/\n[2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/exec.html\n[3] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8408\n[4] https://www.qualys.com/2022/01/25/cve-2021-4034/pwnkit.txt\n[5] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/176\n[6] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execve%5C+*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C+*NULL&literal=0\n[7] https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=execlp%3F%5Cs*%5C%28%5B%5E%2C%5D%2B%2C%5Cs*NULL&literal=0\n[8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220131144352.GE16385@xsang-OptiPlex-9020/" ],
  "affected_release" : [ {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9",
    "release_date" : "2022-11-15T00:00:00Z",
    "advisory" : "RHSA-2022:8267",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:9",
    "package" : "kernel-0:5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9",
    "release_date" : "2022-11-15T00:00:00Z",
    "advisory" : "RHSA-2022:8267",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9",
    "package" : "kernel-0:5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1"
  } ],
  "package_state" : [ {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10",
    "fix_state" : "Not affected",
    "package_name" : "kernel",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6",
    "fix_state" : "Out of support scope",
    "package_name" : "kernel",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7",
    "fix_state" : "Out of support scope",
    "package_name" : "kernel",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7",
    "fix_state" : "Out of support scope",
    "package_name" : "kernel-rt",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8",
    "fix_state" : "Out of support scope",
    "package_name" : "kernel",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8",
    "fix_state" : "Out of support scope",
    "package_name" : "kernel-rt",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8"
  }, {
    "product_name" : "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9",
    "fix_state" : "Affected",
    "package_name" : "kernel-rt",
    "cpe" : "cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9"
  } ],
  "references" : [ "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49264\nhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49264\nhttps://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025022629-CVE-2022-49264-ca90@gregkh/T" ],
  "name" : "CVE-2022-49264",
  "csaw" : false
}