# CVE-2022-49554: zsmalloc: fix races between asynchronous zspage free and page migration

> A race condition in the Linux kernel's zsmalloc subsystem can lead to unsafe memory dereferences and potential system crashes during page migration.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49554, GHSA-wv76-pjmf-rxjc, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49554

## What is CVE-2022-49554?

CVE-2022-49554 is a high-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:

zsmalloc: fix races between asynchronous zspage free and page migration

The asynchronous zspage free worker tries to lock a zspage's entire page
list without defending against page migration.  Since pages which haven't
yet been locked can concurrently migrate off the zspage page list while
lock_zspage() churns away, lock_zspage() can suffer from a few different
lethal races.

It can lock a page which no longer belongs to the zspage and unsafely
dereference page_private(), it can unsafely dereference a torn pointer to
the next page (since there's a data race), and it can observe a spurious
NULL pointer to the next page and thus not lock all of the zspage's pages
(since a single page migration will reconstruct the entire page list, and
create_page_chain() unconditionally zeroes out each list pointer in the
process).

Fix the races by using migrate_read_lock() in lock_zspage() to synchronize
with page migration.

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49554?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-49554?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-49554 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49554 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-2022-49554 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-49554 is a high-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-2022-49554 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-2022-49554/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49554/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49554
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49554
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-49554

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49554/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.