CVE-2022-50486 net: ethernet: ti: Fix return type of netcp_ndo_start_xmit()
A type mismatch in the TI NetCP driver causes kernel panics when Control Flow Integrity is enabled, leading to denial of service.
- 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-2022-50486?
CVE-2022-50486 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 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:
net: ethernet: ti: Fix return type of netcp_ndo_start_xmit()
With clang's kernel control flow integrity (kCFI, CONFIG_CFI_CLANG), indirect call targets are validated against the expected function pointer prototype to make sure the call target is valid to help mitigate ROP attacks. If they are not identical, there is a failure at run time, which manifests as either a kernel panic or thread getting killed. A proposed warning in clang aims to catch these at compile time, which reveals:
drivers/net/ethernet/ti/netcp_core.c:1944:21: error: incompatible function pointer types initializing 'netdev_tx_t (*)(struct sk_buff *, struct net_device *)' (aka 'enum netdev_tx (*)(struct sk_buff *, struct net_device *)') with an expression of type 'int (struct sk_buff *, struct net_device *)' [-Werror,-Wincompatible-function-pointer-types-strict] .ndo_start_xmit = netcp_ndo_start_xmit, ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 error generated.
->ndo_start_xmit() in 'struct net_device_ops' expects a return type of 'netdev_tx_t', not 'int'. Adjust the return type of netcp_ndo_start_xmit() to match the prototype's to resolve the warning and CFI failure.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50486?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-50486?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2022-50486 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50486 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50486, GHSA-mqj8-8wq6-rg29, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50486.