# CVE-2022-21813: Privilege escalation in NVIDIA GPU Display Driver

> An unprivileged local user can gain limited write access to protected memory, leading to denial of service and potential privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 7 Feb 2022
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-21813, GHSA-j78x-pc9w-6w5v, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-21813

## What is CVE-2022-21813?

CVE-2022-21813 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Nvidia Gpu Display Driver, published on 7 Feb 2022. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux contains a vulnerability in the kernel driver, where improper handling of insufficient permissions or privileges may allow an unprivileged local user limited write access to protected memory, which can lead to denial of service.

Weakness: CWE-755 (Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions), CWE-284 (Improper Access Control)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-21813?

It affects 8 products.


Products: Nvidia Cloud Gaming Guest, Nvidia Geforce, Nvidia Gpu Display Driver, Nvidia Nvs, Nvidia Quadro, Nvidia Rtx, Nvidia Tesla, Nvidia Virtual Gpu.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-21813?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-21813 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-21813 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Nvidia Gpu Display Driver

- [CVE-2022-31606](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31606/): Memory corruption in NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (guest driver) (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-31607](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31607/): Privilege escalation in NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (guest driver), NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (Virtual GPU Manager) (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-31610](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31610/): Memory corruption in NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (guest driver) (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-31617](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31617/): Memory corruption in NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (guest driver) (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-31612](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31612/): Information disclosure in NVIDIA Cloud Gaming (guest driver) (high 7.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-21813 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-21813 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Nvidia Gpu Display Driver, published on 7 Feb 2022. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-21813 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Nvidia Gpu Display Driver. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21813/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21813/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-21813
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-21813
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-21813

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-21813/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.