CVE-2022-49605 igc: Reinstate IGC_REMOVED logic and implement it properly

What is CVE-2022-49605?

CVE-2022-49605 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:

igc: Reinstate IGC_REMOVED logic and implement it properly

The initially merged version of the igc driver code (via commit 146740f9abc4, "igc: Add support for PF") contained the following IGC_REMOVED checks in the igc_rd32/wr32() MMIO accessors:

u32 igc_rd32(struct igc_hw *hw, u32 reg) { u8 __iomem *hw_addr = READ_ONCE(hw->hw_addr); u32 value = 0;

if (IGC_REMOVED(hw_addr)) return ~value;

value = readl(&hw_addr[reg]);

/* reads should not return all F's */ if (!(~value) && (!reg || !(~readl(hw_addr)))) hw->hw_addr = NULL;

return value; }

And:

#define wr32(reg, val) \ do { \ u8 __iomem *hw_addr = READ_ONCE((hw)->hw_addr); \ if (!IGC_REMOVED(hw_addr)) \ writel((val), &hw_addr[(reg)]); \ } while (0)

E.g. igb has similar checks in its MMIO accessors, and has a similar macro E1000_REMOVED, which is implemented as follows:

#define E1000_REMOVED(h) unlikely(!(h))

These checks serve to detect and take note of an 0xffffffff MMIO read return from the device, which can be caused by a PCIe link flap or some other kind of PCI bus error, and to avoid performing MMIO reads and writes from that point onwards.

However, the IGC_REMOVED macro was not originally implemented:

#ifndef IGC_REMOVED #define IGC_REMOVED(a) (0) #endif /* IGC_REMOVED */

This led to the IGC_REMOVED logic to be removed entirely in a subsequent commit (commit 3c215fb18e70, "igc: remove IGC_REMOVED function"), with the rationale that such checks matter only for virtualization and that igc does not support virtualization -- but a PCIe device can become detached even without virtualization being in use, and without proper checks, a PCIe bus error affecting an igc adapter will lead to various NULL pointer dereferences, as the first access after the error will set hw->hw_addr to NULL, and subsequent accesses will blindly dereference this now-NULL pointer.

This patch reinstates the IGC_REMOVED checks in igc_rd32/wr32(), and implements IGC_REMOVED the way it is done for igb, by checking for the unlikely() case of hw_addr being NULL. This change prevents the oopses seen when a PCIe link flap occurs on an igc adapter.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49605?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49605?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49605 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49605 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-2022-49605, GHSA-6hqq-r498-2prh, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49605.