CVE-2022-49916 rose: Fix NULL pointer dereference in rose_send_frame()

What is CVE-2022-49916?

CVE-2022-49916 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:

rose: Fix NULL pointer dereference in rose_send_frame()

The syzkaller reported an issue:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000380-0x0000000000000387] CPU: 0 PID: 4069 Comm: kworker/0:15 Not tainted 6.0.0-syzkaller-02734-g0326074ff465 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 09/22/2022 Workqueue: rcu_gp srcu_invoke_callbacks RIP: 0010:rose_send_frame+0x1dd/0x2f0 net/rose/rose_link.c:101 Call Trace: <IRQ> rose_transmit_clear_request+0x1d5/0x290 net/rose/rose_link.c:255 rose_rx_call_request+0x4c0/0x1bc0 net/rose/af_rose.c:1009 rose_loopback_timer+0x19e/0x590 net/rose/rose_loopback.c:111 call_timer_fn+0x1a0/0x6b0 kernel/time/timer.c:1474 expire_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1519 [inline] __run_timers.part.0+0x674/0xa80 kernel/time/timer.c:1790 __run_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1768 [inline] run_timer_softirq+0xb3/0x1d0 kernel/time/timer.c:1803 __do_softirq+0x1d0/0x9c8 kernel/softirq.c:571 [...] </IRQ>

It triggers NULL pointer dereference when 'neigh->dev->dev_addr' is called in the rose_send_frame(). It's the first occurrence of the `neigh` is in rose_loopback_timer() as `rose_loopback_neigh', and the 'dev' in 'rose_loopback_neigh' is initialized sa nullptr.

It had been fixed by commit 3b3fd068c56e3fbea30090859216a368398e39bf ("rose: Fix Null pointer dereference in rose_send_frame()") ever. But it's introduced by commit 3c53cd65dece47dd1f9d3a809f32e59d1d87b2b8 ("rose: check NULL rose_loopback_neigh->loopback") again.

We fix it by add NULL check in rose_transmit_clear_request(). When the 'dev' in 'neigh' is NULL, we don't reply the request and just clear it.

syzkaller don't provide repro, and I provide a syz repro like: r0 = syz_init_net_socket$bt_sco(0x1f, 0x5, 0x2) ioctl$sock_inet_SIOCSIFFLAGS(r0, 0x8914, &(0x7f0000000180)={'rose0\x00', 0x201}) r1 = syz_init_net_socket$rose(0xb, 0x5, 0x0) bind$rose(r1, &(0x7f00000000c0)=@full={0xb, @dev, @null, 0x0, [@null, @null, @netrom, @netrom, @default, @null]}, 0x40) connect$rose(r1, &(0x7f0000000240)=@short={0xb, @dev={0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0x1, 0x0}, @remote={0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc, 0x1}, 0x1, @netrom={0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0xbb, 0x0, 0x0}}, 0x1c)

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49916?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49916?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49916 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49916 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-2022-49916, GHSA-7qcm-qx74-j7hr, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49916.