CVE-2022-49286 tpm: use try_get_ops() in tpm-space.c

What is CVE-2022-49286?

CVE-2022-49286 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:

tpm: use try_get_ops() in tpm-space.c

As part of the series conversion to remove nested TPM operations:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/

exposure of the chip->tpm_mutex was removed from much of the upper level code. In this conversion, tpm2_del_space() was missed. This didn't matter much because it's usually called closely after a converted operation, so there's only a very tiny race window where the chip can be removed before the space flushing is done which causes a NULL deref on the mutex. However, there are reports of this window being hit in practice, so fix this by converting tpm2_del_space() to use tpm_try_get_ops(), which performs all the teardown checks before acquring the mutex.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49286?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49286?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49286 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49286 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49286, GHSA-j8q3-52jg-4q93, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49286.