CVE-2022-49889 ring-buffer: Check for NULL cpu_buffer in ring_buffer_wake_waiters()

What is CVE-2022-49889?

CVE-2022-49889 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 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:

ring-buffer: Check for NULL cpu_buffer in ring_buffer_wake_waiters()

On some machines the number of listed CPUs may be bigger than the actual CPUs that exist. The tracing subsystem allocates a per_cpu directory with access to the per CPU ring buffer via a cpuX file. But to save space, the ring buffer will only allocate buffers for online CPUs, even though the CPU array will be as big as the nr_cpu_ids.

With the addition of waking waiters on the ring buffer when closing the file, the ring_buffer_wake_waiters() now needs to make sure that the buffer is allocated (with the irq_work allocated with it) before trying to wake waiters, as it will cause a NULL pointer dereference.

While debugging this, I added a NULL check for the buffer itself (which is OK to do), and also NULL pointer checks against buffer->buffers (which is not fine, and will WARN) as well as making sure the CPU number passed in is within the nr_cpu_ids (which is also not fine if it isn't).

Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204705

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49889?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49889?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49889 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49889 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-2022-49889, GHSA-w9wh-q8v9-3rwf, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49889.