CVE-2022-50581 hfs: fix OOB Read in __hfs_brec_find
An out-of-bounds read in the Linux kernel HFS filesystem allows attackers to cause a denial of service or leak sensitive memory information.
- 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-2022-50581?
CVE-2022-50581 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 22 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:
hfs: fix OOB Read in __hfs_brec_find
Syzbot reported a OOB read bug:
================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in hfs_strcmp+0x117/0x190 fs/hfs/string.c:84 Read of size 1 at addr ffff88807eb62c4e by task kworker/u4:1/11 CPU: 1 PID: 11 Comm: kworker/u4:1 Not tainted 6.1.0-rc6-syzkaller-00308-g644e9524388a #0 Workqueue: writeback wb_workfn (flush-7:0) Call Trace: <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:88 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x1b1/0x28e lib/dump_stack.c:106 print_address_description+0x74/0x340 mm/kasan/report.c:284 print_report+0x107/0x1f0 mm/kasan/report.c:395 kasan_report+0xcd/0x100 mm/kasan/report.c:495 hfs_strcmp+0x117/0x190 fs/hfs/string.c:84 __hfs_brec_find+0x213/0x5c0 fs/hfs/bfind.c:75 hfs_brec_find+0x276/0x520 fs/hfs/bfind.c:138 hfs_write_inode+0x34c/0xb40 fs/hfs/inode.c:462 write_inode fs/fs-writeback.c:1440 [inline]
If the input inode of hfs_write_inode() is incorrect: struct inode struct hfs_inode_info struct hfs_cat_key struct hfs_name u8 len # len is greater than HFS_NAMELEN(31) which is the maximum length of an HFS filename
OOB read occurred: hfs_write_inode() hfs_brec_find() __hfs_brec_find() hfs_cat_keycmp() hfs_strcmp() # OOB read occurred due to len is too large
Fix this by adding a Check on len in hfs_write_inode() before calling hfs_brec_find().
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50581?
How do I fix CVE-2022-50581?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2022-50581 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50581 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50581, GHSA-w7j9-m3x4-j6vr, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50581.