# CVE-2022-50435: ext4: avoid crash when inline data creation follows DIO write

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash in the ext4 filesystem by mixing direct and buffered I/O operations, 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:** 1 Oct 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50435, GHSA-7mww-5m6h-hg34, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50435

## What is CVE-2022-50435?

CVE-2022-50435 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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:

ext4: avoid crash when inline data creation follows DIO write

When inode is created and written to using direct IO, there is nothing
to clear the EXT4_STATE_MAY_INLINE_DATA flag. Thus when inode gets
truncated later to say 1 byte and written using normal write, we will
try to store the data as inline data. This confuses the code later
because the inode now has both normal block and inline data allocated
and the confusion manifests for example as:

kernel BUG at fs/ext4/inode.c:2721!
invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN
CPU: 0 PID: 359 Comm: repro Not tainted 5.19.0-rc8-00001-g31ba1e3b8305-dirty #15
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.0-1.fc36 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:ext4_writepages+0x363d/0x3660
RSP: 0018:ffffc90000ccf260 EFLAGS: 00010293
RAX: ffffffff81e1abcd RBX: 0000008000000000 RCX: ffff88810842a180
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000008000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000
RBP: ffffc90000ccf650 R08: ffffffff81e17d58 R09: ffffed10222c680b
R10: dfffe910222c680c R11: 1ffff110222c680a R12: ffff888111634128
R13: ffffc90000ccf880 R14: 0000008410000000 R15: 0000000000000001
FS:  00007f72635d2640(0000) GS:ffff88811b000000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 0000565243379180 CR3: 000000010aa74000 CR4: 0000000000150eb0
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 do_writepages+0x397/0x640
 filemap_fdatawrite_wbc+0x151/0x1b0
 file_write_and_wait_range+0x1c9/0x2b0
 ext4_sync_file+0x19e/0xa00
 vfs_fsync_range+0x17b/0x190
 ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x488/0x530
 ext4_file_write_iter+0x449/0x1b90
 vfs_write+0xbcd/0xf40
 ksys_write+0x198/0x2c0
 __x64_sys_write+0x7b/0x90
 do_syscall_64+0x3d/0x90
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
 </TASK>

Fix the problem by clearing EXT4_STATE_MAY_INLINE_DATA when we are doing
direct IO write to a file.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50435?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-50435?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50435 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50435 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-2022-50435 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50435 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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-2022-50435 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-2022-50435/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50435/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50435
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50435
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50435

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50435/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.