# CVE-2022-49272: ALSA: pcm: Fix potential AB/BA lock with buffer_mutex and mmap_lock

> A race condition in the Linux kernel ALSA PCM subsystem can cause a deadlock, leading to a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:** 26 Feb 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49272, GHSA-5w6j-rmq5-x4x9, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49272

## What is CVE-2022-49272?

CVE-2022-49272 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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

ALSA: pcm: Fix potential AB/BA lock with buffer_mutex and mmap_lock

syzbot caught a potential deadlock between the PCM
runtime->buffer_mutex and the mm->mmap_lock.  It was brought by the
recent fix to cover the racy read/write and other ioctls, and in that
commit, I overlooked a (hopefully only) corner case that may take the
revert lock, namely, the OSS mmap.  The OSS mmap operation
exceptionally allows to re-configure the parameters inside the OSS
mmap syscall, where mm->mmap_mutex is already held.  Meanwhile, the
copy_from/to_user calls at read/write operations also take the
mm->mmap_lock internally, hence it may lead to a AB/BA deadlock.

A similar problem was already seen in the past and we fixed it with a
refcount (in commit b248371628aa).  The former fix covered only the
call paths with OSS read/write and OSS ioctls, while we need to cover
the concurrent access via both ALSA and OSS APIs now.

This patch addresses the problem above by replacing the buffer_mutex
lock in the read/write operations with a refcount similar as we've
used for OSS.  The new field, runtime->buffer_accessing, keeps the
number of concurrent read/write operations.  Unlike the former
buffer_mutex protection, this protects only around the
copy_from/to_user() calls; the other codes are basically protected by
the PCM stream lock.  The refcount can be a negative, meaning blocked
by the ioctls.  If a negative value is seen, the read/write aborts
with -EBUSY.  In the ioctl side, OTOH, they check this refcount, too,
and set to a negative value for blocking unless it's already being
accessed.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49272?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-49272?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-49272 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49272 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-49272 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-49272 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. 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-2022-49272 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. 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-2022-49272/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49272/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49272
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49272
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-49272

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49272/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.