CVE-2022-50014

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Description

The MITRE CVE dictionary describes this issue as

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/gup: fix FOLL_FORCE COW security issue and remove FOLL_COW Ever since the Dirty COW (CVE-2016-5195) security issue happened, we know that FOLL_FORCE can be possibly dangerous, especially if there are races that can be exploited by user space. Right now, it would be sufficient to have some code that sets a PTE of a R/O-mapped shared page dirty, in order for it to erroneously become writable by FOLL_FORCE. The implications of setting a write-protected PTE dirty might not be immediately obvious to everyone. And in fact ever since commit 9ae0f87d009c ("mm/shmem: unconditionally set pte dirty in mfill_atomic_install_pte"), we can use UFFDIO_CONTINUE to map a shmem page R/O while marking the pte dirty. This can be used by unprivileged user space to modify tmpfs/shmem file content even if the user does not have write permissions to the file, and to bypass memfd write sealing -- Dirty COW restricted to tmpfs/shmem (CVE-2022-2590). To fix such security issues for good, the insight is that we really only need that fancy retry logic (FOLL_COW) for COW mappings that are not writable (!VM_WRITE). And in a COW mapping, we really only broke COW if we have an exclusive anonymous page mapped. If we have something else mapped, or the mapped anonymous page might be shared (!PageAnonExclusive), we have to trigger a write fault to break COW. If we don't find an exclusive anonymous page when we retry, we have to trigger COW breaking once again because something intervened. Let's move away from this mandatory-retry + dirty handling and rely on our PageAnonExclusive() flag for making a similar decision, to use the same COW logic as in other kernel parts here as well. In case we stumble over a PTE in a COW mapping that does not map an exclusive anonymous page, COW was not properly broken and we have to trigger a fake write-fault to break COW. Just like we do in can_change_pte_writable() added via commit 64fe24a3e05e ("mm/mprotect: try avoiding write faults for exclusive anonymous pages when changing protection") and commit 76aefad628aa ("mm/mprotect: fix soft-dirty check in can_change_pte_writable()"), take care of softdirty and uffd-wp manually. For example, a write() via /proc/self/mem to a uffd-wp-protected range has to fail instead of silently granting write access and bypassing the userspace fault handler. Note that FOLL_FORCE is not only used for debug access, but also triggered by applications without debug intentions, for example, when pinning pages via RDMA. This fixes CVE-2022-2590. Note that only x86_64 and aarch64 are affected, because only those support CONFIG_HAVE_ARCH_USERFAULTFD_MINOR. Fortunately, FOLL_COW is no longer required to handle FOLL_FORCE. So let's just get rid of it. Thanks to Nadav Amit for pointing out that the pte_dirty() check in FOLL_FORCE code is problematic and might be exploitable. Note 1: We don't check for the PTE being dirty because it doesn't matter for making a "was COWed" decision anymore, and whoever modifies the page has to set the page dirty either way. Note 2: Kernels before extended uffd-wp support and before PageAnonExclusive (< 5.19) can simply revert the problematic commit instead and be safe regarding UFFDIO_CONTINUE. A backport to v5.19 requires minor adjustments due to lack of vma_soft_dirty_enabled().

Statement

A flaw in the GUP/FOLL_FORCE COW handling allowed unprivileged users to write to tmpfs/shmem or memfd files without having write permissions, bypassing memfd write sealing (CVE-2022-2590). The fix removes FOLL_COW and uses PageAnonExclusive()-based logic to ensure COW is actually broken only when safe, preventing unintended write access.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50014

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50014

Content from lore.kernel.org is not included.https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025061833-CVE-2022-50014-2936@gregkh/T

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 kernel Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel-rt Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel-rt Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt Affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel Fixed RHSA-2023:2458
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 7 7
Attack Vector Local Local
Attack Complexity High High
Privileges Required Low Low
User Interaction None None
Scope Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact High High
Integrity Impact High High
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.