CVE-2022-50222 tty: vt: initialize unicode screen buffer

What is CVE-2022-50222?

CVE-2022-50222 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:

tty: vt: initialize unicode screen buffer

syzbot reports kernel infoleak at vcs_read() [1], for buffer can be read immediately after resize operation. Initialize buffer using kzalloc().

---------- #include <fcntl.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <sys/ioctl.h> #include <linux/fb.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { struct fb_var_screeninfo var = { }; const int fb_fd = open("/dev/fb0", 3); ioctl(fb_fd, FBIOGET_VSCREENINFO, &var); var.yres = 0x21; ioctl(fb_fd, FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO, &var); return read(open("/dev/vcsu", O_RDONLY), &var, sizeof(var)) == -1; } ----------

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50222?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-50222?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-50222 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50222 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-2022-50222, GHSA-3c52-2wpc-wj62, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50222.