CVE-2022-50256 drm/meson: remove drm bridges at aggregate driver unbind time
A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's meson DRM driver allows attackers to cause a denial of service or potentially execute code via dangling references.
- 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-2022-50256?
CVE-2022-50256 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 15 Sep 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:
drm/meson: remove drm bridges at aggregate driver unbind time
drm bridges added by meson_encoder_hdmi_init and meson_encoder_cvbs_init were not manually removed at module unload time, which caused dangling references to freed memory to remain linked in the global bridge_list.
When loading the driver modules back in, the same functions would again call drm_bridge_add, and when traversing the global bridge_list, would end up peeking into freed memory.
Once again KASAN revealed the problem:
[ +0.000095] ============================================================= [ +0.000008] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in __list_add_valid+0x9c/0x120 [ +0.000018] Read of size 8 at addr ffff00003da291f0 by task modprobe/2483
[ +0.000018] CPU: 3 PID: 2483 Comm: modprobe Tainted: G C O 5.19.0-rc6-lrmbkasan+ #1 [ +0.000011] Hardware name: Hardkernel ODROID-N2Plus (DT) [ +0.000008] Call trace: [ +0.000006] dump_backtrace+0x1ec/0x280 [ +0.000012] show_stack+0x24/0x80 [ +0.000008] dump_stack_lvl+0x98/0xd4 [ +0.000011] print_address_description.constprop.0+0x80/0x520 [ +0.000011] print_report+0x128/0x260 [ +0.000008] kasan_report+0xb8/0xfc [ +0.000008] __asan_report_load8_noabort+0x3c/0x50 [ +0.000009] __list_add_valid+0x9c/0x120 [ +0.000009] drm_bridge_add+0x6c/0x104 [drm] [ +0.000165] dw_hdmi_probe+0x1900/0x2360 [dw_hdmi] [ +0.000022] meson_dw_hdmi_bind+0x520/0x814 [meson_dw_hdmi] [ +0.000014] component_bind+0x174/0x520 [ +0.000012] component_bind_all+0x1a8/0x38c [ +0.000010] meson_drv_bind_master+0x5e8/0xb74 [meson_drm] [ +0.000032] meson_drv_bind+0x20/0x2c [meson_drm] [ +0.000027] try_to_bring_up_aggregate_device+0x19c/0x390 [ +0.000010] component_master_add_with_match+0x1c8/0x284 [ +0.000009] meson_drv_probe+0x274/0x280 [meson_drm] [ +0.000026] platform_probe+0xd0/0x220 [ +0.000009] really_probe+0x3ac/0xa80 [ +0.000009] __driver_probe_device+0x1f8/0x400 [ +0.000009] driver_probe_device+0x68/0x1b0 [ +0.000009] __driver_attach+0x20c/0x480 [ +0.000008] bus_for_each_dev+0x114/0x1b0 [ +0.000009] driver_attach+0x48/0x64 [ +0.000008] bus_add_driver+0x390/0x564 [ +0.000009] driver_register+0x1a8/0x3e4 [ +0.000009] __platform_driver_register+0x6c/0x94 [ +0.000008] meson_drm_platform_driver_init+0x3c/0x1000 [meson_drm] [ +0.000027] do_one_initcall+0xc4/0x2b0 [ +0.000011] do_init_module+0x154/0x570 [ +0.000011] load_module+0x1a78/0x1ea4 [ +0.000008] __do_sys_init_module+0x184/0x1cc [ +0.000009] __arm64_sys_init_module+0x78/0xb0 [ +0.000009] invoke_syscall+0x74/0x260 [ +0.000009] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0xcc/0x260 [ +0.000008] do_el0_svc+0x50/0x70 [ +0.000007] el0_svc+0x68/0x1a0 [ +0.000012] el0t_64_sync_handler+0x11c/0x150 [ +0.000008] el0t_64_sync+0x18c/0x190
[ +0.000016] Allocated by task 879: [ +0.000008] kasan_save_stack+0x2c/0x5c [ +0.000011] __kasan_kmalloc+0x90/0xd0 [ +0.000007] __kmalloc+0x278/0x4a0 [ +0.000011] mpi_resize+0x13c/0x1d0 [ +0.000011] mpi_powm+0xd24/0x1570 [ +0.000009] rsa_enc+0x1a4/0x30c [ +0.000009] pkcs1pad_verify+0x3f0/0x580 [ +0.000009] public_key_verify_signature+0x7a8/0xba4 [ +0.000010] public_key_verify_signature_2+0x40/0x60 [ +0.000008] verify_signature+0xb4/0x114 [ +0.000008] pkcs7_validate_trust_one.constprop.0+0x3b8/0x574 [ +0.000009] pkcs7_validate_trust+0xb8/0x15c [ +0.000008] verify_pkcs7_message_sig+0xec/0x1b0 [ +0.000012] verify_pkcs7_signature+0x78/0xac [ +0.000007] mod_verify_sig+0x110/0x190 [ +0.000009] module_sig_check+0x114/0x1e0 [ +0.000009] load_module+0xa0/0x1ea4 [ +0.000008] __do_sys_init_module+0x184/0x1cc [ +0.000008] __arm64_sys_init_module+0x78/0xb0 [ +0.000008] invoke_syscall+0x74/0x260 [ +0.000009] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x1a8/0x260 [ +0.000008] do_el0_svc+0x50/0x70 [ +0.000007] el0_svc+0x68/0x1a0 [ +0.000009] el0t_64_sync_handler+0x11c/0x150 [ +0.000009] el0t_64 ---truncated---
Weakness: CWE-416
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50256?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-50256?
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-2022-50256 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50256 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as AZL-70765, DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50256, GHSA-qh76-9567-4h37, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-50256, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2022-50256, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50256.