# CVE-2022-50069: BPF: Fix potential bad pointer dereference in bpf_sys_bpf()

> A local attacker with eBPF privileges can trigger a kernel crash by providing an invalid pointer to the bpf_sys_bpf helper, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:** 18 Jun 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50069, GHSA-737f-4c7f-cgc8, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50069

## What is CVE-2022-50069?

CVE-2022-50069 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:

BPF: Fix potential bad pointer dereference in bpf_sys_bpf()

The bpf_sys_bpf() helper function allows an eBPF program to load another
eBPF program from within the kernel. In this case the argument union
bpf_attr pointer (as well as the insns and license pointers inside) is a
kernel address instead of a userspace address (which is the case of a
usual bpf() syscall). To make the memory copying process in the syscall
work in both cases, bpfptr_t was introduced to wrap around the pointer
and distinguish its origin. Specifically, when copying memory contents
from a bpfptr_t, a copy_from_user() is performed in case of a userspace
address and a memcpy() is performed for a kernel address.

This can lead to problems because the in-kernel pointer is never checked
for validity. The problem happens when an eBPF syscall program tries to
call bpf_sys_bpf() to load a program but provides a bad insns pointer --
say 0xdeadbeef -- in the bpf_attr union. The helper calls __sys_bpf()
which would then call bpf_prog_load() to load the program.
bpf_prog_load() is responsible for copying the eBPF instructions to the
newly allocated memory for the program; it creates a kernel bpfptr_t for
insns and invokes copy_from_bpfptr(). Internally, all bpfptr_t
operations are backed by the corresponding sockptr_t operations, which
performs direct memcpy() on kernel pointers for copy_from/strncpy_from
operations. Therefore, the code is always happy to dereference the bad
pointer to trigger a un-handle-able page fault and in turn an oops.
However, this is not supposed to happen because at that point the eBPF
program is already verified and should not cause a memory error.

Sample KASAN trace:

[   25.685056][  T228] ==================================================================
[   25.685680][  T228] BUG: KASAN: user-memory-access in copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.686210][  T228] Read of size 80 at addr 00000000deadbeef by task poc/228
[   25.686732][  T228]
[   25.686893][  T228] CPU: 3 PID: 228 Comm: poc Not tainted 5.19.0-rc7 #7
[   25.687375][  T228] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS d55cb5a 04/01/2014
[   25.687991][  T228] Call Trace:
[   25.688223][  T228]  <TASK>
[   25.688429][  T228]  dump_stack_lvl+0x73/0x9e
[   25.688747][  T228]  print_report+0xea/0x200
[   25.689061][  T228]  ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.689401][  T228]  ? _printk+0x54/0x6e
[   25.689693][  T228]  ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x70/0xd0
[   25.690071][  T228]  ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.690412][  T228]  kasan_report+0xb5/0xe0
[   25.690716][  T228]  ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.691059][  T228]  kasan_check_range+0x2bd/0x2e0
[   25.691405][  T228]  ? copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.691734][  T228]  memcpy+0x25/0x60
[   25.692000][  T228]  copy_from_bpfptr+0x21/0x30
[   25.692328][  T228]  bpf_prog_load+0x604/0x9e0
[   25.692653][  T228]  ? cap_capable+0xb4/0xe0
[   25.692956][  T228]  ? security_capable+0x4f/0x70
[   25.693324][  T228]  __sys_bpf+0x3af/0x580
[   25.693635][  T228]  bpf_sys_bpf+0x45/0x240
[   25.693937][  T228]  bpf_prog_f0ec79a5a3caca46_bpf_func1+0xa2/0xbd
[   25.694394][  T228]  bpf_prog_run_pin_on_cpu+0x2f/0xb0
[   25.694756][  T228]  bpf_prog_test_run_syscall+0x146/0x1c0
[   25.695144][  T228]  bpf_prog_test_run+0x172/0x190
[   25.695487][  T228]  __sys_bpf+0x2c5/0x580
[   25.695776][  T228]  __x64_sys_bpf+0x3a/0x50
[   25.696084][  T228]  do_syscall_64+0x60/0x90
[   25.696393][  T228]  ? fpregs_assert_state_consistent+0x50/0x60
[   25.696815][  T228]  ? exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x36/0xa0
[   25.697202][  T228]  ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x20/0x40
[   25.697586][  T228]  ? do_syscall_64+0x6e/0x90
[   25.697899][  T228]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
[   25.698312][  T228] RIP: 0033:0x7f6d543fb759
[   25.698624][  T228] Code: 08 5b 89 e8 5d c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 
---truncated---

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50069?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-50069?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50069 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50069 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-2022-50069 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50069 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50069 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-2022-50069/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50069/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50069
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50069
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50069

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50069/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.
