CVE-2022-49171 | ext4: don't BUG if someone dirty pages without asking ext4 first

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: don't BUG if someone dirty pages without asking ext4 first [un]pin_user_pages_remote is dirtying pages without properly warning the file system in advance. A related race was noted by Jan Kara in 2018[1]; however, more recently instead of it being a very hard-to-hit race, it could be reliably triggered by process_vm_writev(2) which was discovered by Syzbot[2]. This is technically a bug in mm/gup.c, but arguably ext4 is fragile in that if some other kernel subsystem dirty pages without properly notifying the file system using page_mkwrite(), ext4 will BUG, while other file systems will not BUG (although data will still be lost). So instead of crashing with a BUG, issue a warning (since there may be potential data loss) and just mark the page as clean to avoid unprivileged denial of service attacks until the problem can be properly fixed. More discussion and background can be found in the thread starting at [2]. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/[email protected] [2] https://lore.kernel.org/r/[email protected]

Published: 2025-02-26 Last update: 2025-09-23 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-49171 is rated Low Risk (27.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-49171

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-11-21 0.07% 0.05% -0.02%
2 2025-11-18 0.05% 0.07% +0.02%
3 2025-11-12 0.05%

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-49171

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-49171

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-49171

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-49171 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2022-49171
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49171
suse medium CVE-2022-49171 severity moderate: SUSE including 277 source package names (amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20210304-hvm-ssd-x86_64, amazon/suse-sles-15-sp1-chost-byos-v20220127-hvm-ssd-x86_64, …), 496 product×package rows across 54 product lines (Image SLES12-SP5-Azure-BYOS, Image SLES12-SP5-Azure-HPC-BYOS, … (54 product lines)): Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 185, Fixed 80. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49171/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-49171 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 149, released 145, not-affected 107, needed 5. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-49171

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-49171

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel < 4.9.311 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.10, < 4.14.276 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.15, < 4.19.238 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.20, < 5.4.189 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.5, < 5.10.110 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.33 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 5.16.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.17, < 5.17.2 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-49171

cvelogic Threat Intelligence