CVE-2022-49700 | mm/slub: add missing TID updates on slab deactivation

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/slub: add missing TID updates on slab deactivation The fastpath in slab_alloc_node() assumes that c->slab is stable as long as the TID stays the same. However, two places in __slab_alloc() currently don't update the TID when deactivating the CPU slab. If multiple operations race the right way, this could lead to an object getting lost; or, in an even more unlikely situation, it could even lead to an object being freed onto the wrong slab's freelist, messing up the `inuse` counter and eventually causing a page to be freed to the page allocator while it still contains slab objects. (I haven't actually tested these cases though, this is just based on looking at the code. Writing testcases for this stuff seems like it'd be a pain...) The race leading to state inconsistency is (all operations on the same CPU and kmem_cache): - task A: begin do_slab_free(): - read TID - read pcpu freelist (==NULL) - check `slab == c->slab` (true) - [PREEMPT A->B] - task B: begin slab_alloc_node(): - fastpath fails (`c->freelist` is NULL) - enter __slab_alloc() - slub_get_cpu_ptr() (disables preemption) - enter ___slab_alloc() - take local_lock_irqsave() - read c->freelist as NULL - get_freelist() returns NULL - write `c->slab = NULL` - drop local_unlock_irqrestore() - goto new_slab - slub_percpu_partial() is NULL - get_partial() returns NULL - slub_put_cpu_ptr() (enables preemption) - [PREEMPT B->A] - task A: finish do_slab_free(): - this_cpu_cmpxchg_double() succeeds() - [CORRUPT STATE: c->slab==NULL, c->freelist!=NULL] From there, the object on c->freelist will get lost if task B is allowed to continue from here: It will proceed to the retry_load_slab label, set c->slab, then jump to load_freelist, which clobbers c->freelist. But if we instead continue as follows, we get worse corruption: - task A: run __slab_free() on object from other struct slab: - CPU_PARTIAL_FREE case (slab was on no list, is now on pcpu partial) - task A: run slab_alloc_node() with NUMA node constraint: - fastpath fails (c->slab is NULL) - call __slab_alloc() - slub_get_cpu_ptr() (disables preemption) - enter ___slab_alloc() - c->slab is NULL: goto new_slab - slub_percpu_partial() is non-NULL - set c->slab to slub_percpu_partial(c) - [CORRUPT STATE: c->slab points to slab-1, c->freelist has objects from slab-2] - goto redo - node_match() fails - goto deactivate_slab - existing c->freelist is passed into deactivate_slab() - inuse count of slab-1 is decremented to account for object from slab-2 At this point, the inuse count of slab-1 is 1 lower than it should be. This means that if we free all allocated objects in slab-1 except for one, SLUB will think that slab-1 is completely unused, and may free its page, leading to use-after-free.

Published: 2025-02-26 Last update: 2025-03-25 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-49700 is rated Low Risk (32.1/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.01%). 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-2022-49700

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 2026-05-03 0.06% 0.01% -0.05%
2 2026-04-06 0.03% 0.06% +0.03%
3 2025-11-21 0.03%

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-49700

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 5.9 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-49700

OS Trackers for CVE-2022-49700

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2022-49700 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-2022-49700
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49700
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-49700/
ubuntu medium CVE-2022-49700 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, released 151, ignored 149, not-affected 101, needed 4, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-49700

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-49700

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 3.1, < 4.9.323 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.10, < 4.14.288 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.15, < 4.19.252 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.20, < 5.4.205 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.5, < 5.10.130 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.54 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 5.18.8 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 5.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.19:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 5.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.19:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 5.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.19:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-49700

cvelogic Threat Intelligence