# CVE-2022-50166: Bluetooth: When HCI work queue is drained, only queue chained work

> A race condition in the Linux kernel Bluetooth HCI work queue can cause a kernel warning and potential 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:** AZL-70358, DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50166, GHSA-qxmr-4p8x-2r7c, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-50166, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2022-50166, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50166

## What is CVE-2022-50166?

CVE-2022-50166 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:

Bluetooth: When HCI work queue is drained, only queue chained work

The HCI command, event, and data packet processing workqueue is drained
to avoid deadlock in commit
76727c02c1e1 ("Bluetooth: Call drain_workqueue() before resetting state").

There is another delayed work, which will queue command to this drained
workqueue. Which results in the following error report:

Bluetooth: hci2: command 0x040f tx timeout
WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 18374 at kernel/workqueue.c:1438 __queue_work+0xdad/0x1140
Workqueue: events hci_cmd_timeout
RIP: 0010:__queue_work+0xdad/0x1140
RSP: 0000:ffffc90002cffc60 EFLAGS: 00010093
RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8880b9d3ec00 RCX: 0000000000000000
RDX: ffff888024ba0000 RSI: ffffffff814e048d RDI: ffff8880b9d3ec08
RBP: 0000000000000008 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 00000000b9d39700
R10: ffffffff814f73c6 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff88807cce4c60
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff8880796d8800 R15: ffff8880796d8800
FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b9d00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 000000c0174b4000 CR3: 000000007cae9000 CR4: 00000000003506e0
DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 ? queue_work_on+0xcb/0x110
 ? lockdep_hardirqs_off+0x90/0xd0
 queue_work_on+0xee/0x110
 process_one_work+0x996/0x1610
 ? pwq_dec_nr_in_flight+0x2a0/0x2a0
 ? rwlock_bug.part.0+0x90/0x90
 ? _raw_spin_lock_irq+0x41/0x50
 worker_thread+0x665/0x1080
 ? process_one_work+0x1610/0x1610
 kthread+0x2e9/0x3a0
 ? kthread_complete_and_exit+0x40/0x40
 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30
 </TASK>

To fix this, we can add a new HCI_DRAIN_WQ flag, and don't queue the
timeout workqueue while command workqueue is draining.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50166?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-50166?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50166 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50166 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-2022-50166 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50166 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-2022-50166 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-2022-50166/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50166/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50166
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50166
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50166

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50166/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.