CVE-2022-49992 mm/mprotect: only reference swap pfn page if type match

Medium 5.5 Published 18 Jun 2025 Updated 11 May 2026

A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash via mprotect by causing a null pointer dereference in swap entry handling.

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

What is CVE-2022-49992?

CVE-2022-49992 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Jun 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:

mm/mprotect: only reference swap pfn page if type match

Yu Zhao reported a bug after the commit "mm/swap: Add swp_offset_pfn() to fetch PFN from swap entry" added a check in swp_offset_pfn() for swap type [1]:

kernel BUG at include/linux/swapops.h:117! CPU: 46 PID: 5245 Comm: EventManager_De Tainted: G S O L 6.0.0-dbg-DEV #2 RIP: 0010:pfn_swap_entry_to_page+0x72/0xf0 Code: c6 48 8b 36 48 83 fe ff 74 53 48 01 d1 48 83 c1 08 48 8b 09 f6 c1 01 75 7b 66 90 48 89 c1 48 8b 09 f6 c1 01 74 74 5d c3 eb 9e <0f> 0b 48 ba ff ff ff ff 03 00 00 00 eb ae a9 ff 0f 00 00 75 13 48 RSP: 0018:ffffa59e73fabb80 EFLAGS: 00010282 RAX: 00000000ffffffe8 RBX: 0c00000000000000 RCX: ffffcd5440000000 RDX: 1ffffffffff7a80a RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0c0000000000042b RBP: ffffa59e73fabb80 R08: ffff9965ca6e8bb8 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffffffffa5a2f62d R11: 0000030b372e9fff R12: ffff997b79db5738 R13: 000000000000042b R14: 0c0000000000042b R15: 1ffffffffff7a80a FS: 00007f549d1bb700(0000) GS:ffff99d3cf680000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000440d035b3180 CR3: 0000002243176004 CR4: 00000000003706e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> change_pte_range+0x36e/0x880 change_p4d_range+0x2e8/0x670 change_protection_range+0x14e/0x2c0 mprotect_fixup+0x1ee/0x330 do_mprotect_pkey+0x34c/0x440 __x64_sys_mprotect+0x1d/0x30

It triggers because pfn_swap_entry_to_page() could be called upon e.g. a genuine swap entry.

Fix it by only calling it when it's a write migration entry where the page* is used.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAOUHufaVC2Za-p8m0aiHw6YkheDcrO-C3wRGixwDS32VTS+k1w@mail.gmail.com/

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49992?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49992?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49992 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49992 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49992, GHSA-5mfc-rx34-wgrh, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49992.