CVE-2022-50092 dm thin: fix use-after-free crash in dm_sm_register_threshold_callback

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's device-mapper thin provisioning allows local attackers to cause a system crash.

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-2022-50092?

CVE-2022-50092 is a medium-severity use after free 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:

dm thin: fix use-after-free crash in dm_sm_register_threshold_callback

Fault inject on pool metadata device reports: BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in dm_pool_register_metadata_threshold+0x40/0x80 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8881b9d50068 by task dmsetup/950

CPU: 7 PID: 950 Comm: dmsetup Tainted: G W 5.19.0-rc6 #1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.14.0-1.fc33 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x34/0x44 print_address_description.constprop.0.cold+0xeb/0x3f4 kasan_report.cold+0xe6/0x147 dm_pool_register_metadata_threshold+0x40/0x80 pool_ctr+0xa0a/0x1150 dm_table_add_target+0x2c8/0x640 table_load+0x1fd/0x430 ctl_ioctl+0x2c4/0x5a0 dm_ctl_ioctl+0xa/0x10 __x64_sys_ioctl+0xb3/0xd0 do_syscall_64+0x35/0x80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0

This can be easily reproduced using: echo offline > /sys/block/sda/device/state dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/thin bs=4k count=10 dmsetup load pool --table "0 20971520 thin-pool /dev/sda /dev/sdb 128 0 0"

If a metadata commit fails, the transaction will be aborted and the metadata space maps will be destroyed. If a DM table reload then happens for this failed thin-pool, a use-after-free will occur in dm_sm_register_threshold_callback (called from dm_pool_register_metadata_threshold).

Fix this by in dm_pool_register_metadata_threshold() by returning the -EINVAL error if the thin-pool is in fail mode. Also fail pool_ctr() with a new error message: "Error registering metadata threshold".

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50092?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50092?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2022-50092 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50092 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50092, GHSA-93qw-f7pr-wpxr, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50092.

Is CVE-2022-50092 in your software?

Upload an SBOM and sbomify checks it against every vulnerability here, every day.

Check your SBOMs for free